Hebrews 13:5 Let your conduct be without covetousness; and be content with such things as you have: for He has said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
There is an old Persian fable of a hen, a mouse, and a rabbit who lived together in a little house in the woods. They shared all the work and lived in harmony. The chicken found the firewood, the mouse brought the water from a nearby brook, and the rabbit cooked the meals. Each did his work faithfully and contentedly.
One day, while the hen was out in the forest looking for wood, a nosy crow approached her and asked what she was doing. When he heard, the crow began caw, "That’s not fair! You’re doing the hardest part of the work! That rabbit and mouse are taking advantage of you!
The chicken continued about her work, but try as she would, she could not stop thinking about what the crow said. These feelings festered and festered, and by the time she got home, she was so upset that she burst out in tears, screaming, "It’s not fair! I do the hardest work of the three of us! That’s it! I’m not going to gather this heavy firewood anymore!"
Discontent spreads, as you know, and immediately the rabbit and mouse also began to argue that they had been doing the hardest work and that they were not going to do their jobs anymore either. The three argued until they were tired and finally decided to switch jobs – from now on the rabbit would gather the firewood, the hen would bring the water and the mouse would cook.
As the rabbit hopped into the forest for wood, a fox trailed him, caught him, and ate him. The chicken put the pail into the creek, but the current pulled the pail down under and the chicken with it. The mouse, while sitting on the edge of the big pot of soup, lost his balance and fell in.
Discontentment not only destroyed their happiness but their very lives.
We all have a job to do here. No job is greater than the next -- no person is greater than the next, no matter what those crows might tell you. We are all working for the same King and we can worship Him even while gathering firewood, if that's what He's called us to do!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]The church at Laodicea received a stern warning in chapter 3 of John’s Revelation. We would do well to reflect on it.
The word “Laodicea” is a compound in the Greek; “Laos” which principally means “people”, and “dike”, defined as “principle or decision”. One rendering might read, “rule of the people”, or, in modern terms, “Democracy”. In the western world, we have an affection and even a deep commitment to Democracy. Yet this form of government, “rule of the people” is fatally flawed… because we are fatally flawed by our sin nature…
As we continue to probe the lessons from the salt covenant, we now inquire into our part in the covenant.
Yeshua (Jesus) said He is the “bread of life”. It was His body that was broken on our behalf as the substitutionary sacrifice for our sins. Notice that He never once called us to be the “bread of life”! He is the ONLY “Bread of Life” – the true bread who came down from Heaven which anyone may eat and not die. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is His flesh, given for the life of the world.
For years, when I visited my father-in-law’s home in Jerusalem on the Sabbath, we would break bread and bless the bread with the traditional blessing – “Baruch Ata Adonai Eleheynu Melech HaOlam Ha-Motzi Lechem Min Ha’aretz” – which translated means,”Blessed are You Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who has given us bread from the earth”. After the blessing, my father-in-law would take salt and sprinkle the challah bread as he broke and passed it to everyone at the table.
One day a passerby saw a homeless man on the roadside. He stopped for a moment to hand him some loose change and casually said “God bless you, my friend”.
“I thank God,” said the homeless man, “I am never unhappy.”
Here in Israel we have an interesting geographical phenomenon – there are two landlocked seas. One is alive and one is dead. The sea full of life is the Kinneret, better known as the Sea of Galilee. The dead sea is…….you guessed it, the Dead Sea. Now the Kinneret is constantly emptying as it flows through the Jordan River valley…. into the Dead Sea. But the Dead Sea does not empty its water at all. Instead, the Dead Sea is continually shrinking, because the intense heat at this lowest place on Earth actually evaporates more water than is flowing in. Do you see a parable here?
One of my passions is studying history, especially the American Civil War. Here is an amusing story about General Stonewall Jackson’s famous Valley Campaign. During the war, Jackson’s army found itself on one side of a river when it needed to be on the other.