“The world and flesh and devil all try to hinder me, and show me what I’m missing as I go on with Thee.”
Does the Devil try to hinder you?
He tries to show me what I’m missing.
But as God can clear our vision, we can see a better, grander view, all that the devil puts before us will seem so small.
The chorus says “Earth’s fading joy is receding.”
As we journey, the things of this world should be fading into the distance with the goal ahead becoming clearer.
Ephesians 2:19, 20 “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God. And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.”
Citizens together.
We are no more foreigners, but citizens together in a new country.
Fellow citizens with the saints, saints are separated ones, separated for a purpose.
Set apart and God’s people have always been a separated people.
We might like to be a citizen of this new country and not be cut off from the world around us.
It is impossible to be a citizen of this new country unless we know something of this separation.
God’s people have been a separated people right from the beginning.
Every time we give people the impression that we can join in with them, we are not helping at all, we are hindering them.
We cannot join in with them, we are citizens of another country and fellow citizens.
Citizens of a country have privileges that nobody else has, not because they have paid for them, but because they are citizens.
There are benefits to share and also responsibilities.
It is good if God can help us to see not only our privilege but also our responsibility.
Good to be a loyal and true citizen, and care about the country we belong to.
Fellow workers, fellow helpers, fellow labourers, all the same thing wanting to be a help.
On the farm we had some hives of bees.
From the bees I have learnt something.
I also read a book on bees and the author said that the more he studied the bees and looked into them, the more he thought of them as a living unit, because they worked together so well.
It would be good if God’s people were like that.
Good to be just like a living unit, working and pulling together in harmony.
They once thought that all the bees had a different work to do, and they do, when the hive is functioning normally.
The younger bees are nurse bees, then they graduate to cleaning and cooling the hive, and then foraging and getting water.
They took all the young bees away and they discovered that the older ones could fit in and do the work.
Then they took the older bees away and they discovered that the younger ones would forage and bring water.
Who taught them?
Who showed them?
It wasn’t that they were compelled, that there was something born within them that urged them to do it.
A bee produces a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime, a bee lives from six weeks to 6 months, depending on the honey flow.
That does not seem very much, just a little.
It could feel, well it is not worth doing.
We could feel that the little we can do, it is unnoticed.
It is a little that counts.
The wax, building material for the hive, where does it come from?
It is secreted from the folds in the insects body, it is only secreted in the very minute quantities and they use that for building the hive.
It is so small that it would almost be unnoticed, but they all work together and add the little that they produce and build the hive.
That is how God’s kingdom is built up, by each one adding to it.
Add the virtues of Christ to our own lives, and then we will be adding something to the strength and prosperity of God’s Kingdom.
Some bees clean the hive.
There are many things that need taking away.
There are things that creep in at times.
The wax moth comes in and then the strength of the hive breaks down, sometimes gets in and the hive is overcome.
They keep the hive clean and it is very strong.
A bee can fly and carry more than its own body weight.
They are great burden bearers.
We need to be alive and awake to the things that come in and can make us unclean and God’s family as a whole unclean.
We can do our part by keeping our thoughts right.
Many things begin with our thoughts.
I need to fully bring them into subjection, so that I might be what I should be.
We all have our little part in this.
And we look within, look to ourselves, then we can be helpers together.
Then there are those that are guard bees.
They are on guard because there are robbers that can come in.
Robbers are bees from another hive.
We might wonder however the bees would know that these are the bees that don’t belong there.
There is a different smell about them and they know a robber bee and keep it out.
We have a responsibility to guard what we have been given, because it is so precious and we could so easily lose it, if we let these come in and rob us.
Those little insects only have one sting and if they sting something, it means they die.
They are guarding the hive with their life.
The size of the enemy does not deter them one bit.
Sometimes we look into the future and are discouraged, the size of the enemy frightens us.
It is good if we have faith in God and we are prepared to defend this kingdom with our lives.
Paul, writing to the Corinthians, said he would gladly spend and be spent for God’s people.
That is what those little insects do, they give their lives in defending the hive.
David faced Goliath, a formidable enemy, but he was not afraid of him, because he had faith and confidence in God.
The rest of God’s people were beaten before they began, because they did not have the heart to fight.
You are not beaten until you give up.
A little more persistence, courage, vim,
Success will dawn o’er failure’s cloudy rim.
Then take this honey for the bitterest cup;
There is no failure, save in giving up.
No real fall, so long as one still tries,
For seeming set-backs make the strong man wise.
There’s no defeat, in truth, save from within;
Unless you’re beaten there, you’re bound to win.
It is the attitude to the difficulties that determines the outcome.
If we just say I cannot and the enemy is too great, we are beaten.
But if we just say I will try and with the help of God we try, the Lord will not let us down.
Maybe things that seem impossible, God will help us through.
God specializes in impossibilities.
If we do the little we can do, then God will do the impossible.
Recently we were working in an area where some of the friends had once lived.
It was not hard to ask people to the meetings because God’s people had lived to defend the gospel and had been true.
They were fellow soldiers, they were in it together.
The work of the gospel depends to a great extent on God’s people.
Visiting people door to door does not seem to have much effect.
But when you are living beside people, they see your life and it can speak to them, and you can be fellow soldiers in this battle for truth.
We need each other, don’t we?
We cannot feel that we can do without someone, we need each other.
We can’t fail without putting someone else at a disadvantage.
We have a responsibility to one another and it is good if we feel our responsibility.
The forager bees go out looking for food and for nectar and for pollen and for water.
It is amazing how they can find it.
It is like a miracle.
It is good when we feel our responsibility that way, finding that which will be food and sweetness for others.
When God opens His word to us it becomes bread.
We could know the Scriptures from one end to the other and still have nothing to feed.
Those little insects find sweetness and that which will quench the thirst of others at home.
Good if we are helpers together in that respect.
When we put our all into it, that will make the little fellowship meetings what they should be, because we have found bread and water and we are able to give it.
Those little insects, when the honey flow is good, they can wear themselves out in six weeks.
Their wings become worn away and eventually they just do not make it back to the hive.
They spend and be spent in the interest of the hive.
Paul said he would gladly spend and be spent for the Kingdom.
God has put something within us that urges us to take forward steps.
That little insect does not say, I am tired, I will not do any more, and it keeps on going till the end.
God would like to put the same spirit within us that we want to be true to the end.
When I thought of being fellows, I thought of being fellow heirs also.
If we are fellow labourers, fellow helpers and citizens and filling our place as we should, then there is a promise that we will be fellow heirs.
An heir inherits something that he really doesn’t pay for.
God’s promises are to those who become fellow citizens and we can become fellow heirs of the promises.
What a wonderful promise to be able to enter into all that is eternal, and we have a little taste of it now.
Of the greatness of God’s love, of His peace and joy, and we are going to enter into it fully when this life is no more.
Even though our place might be small I hope we will value work and be found putting our all and our best into it so that God’s kingdom will be built up and it will prosper.
When we think of the devil and all his devices, he would like to impoverish us and pull it all down, we need to be continually built up.
If we don’t do our part in building up, God’s kingdom will be impoverished.
Be found fitting in, it is not a matter of taking someone else’s place, those little insects work together in perfect harmony.
We take a lesson from them, it will make for peace and harmony that the world knows nothing of.
I hope we will be – all that we should be – to one another and His kingdom will be made strong.
Truth Archive 