Who Cares?

It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man. Psalm 118:8

I remember recently teaching that we cannot place our trust in men. Men will die, move, sin, or betray us. Every one of these is not true of every man but the point is that we are to place our trust in God who never disappoints rather than in man who will do one of the above at some point.

I don’t think that I have placed my trust in man over God but I have definitely been let down by the behavior and decisions of men. Perhaps I should not have been surprised by behavior that the Bible tells us is strictly human…men sin and consider their own needs over the needs of others. I’m sure I do this, too. But I still get disillusioned and even frustrated when I think it comes from people who should know better and care more.

Caring more seems to be losing favor with men. Yesterday I heard a sermon on Matthew 7:12a, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.” As I witness actions in the Christian church today I think we’ve lost this teaching. If we really thought about the way we would want to be treated we would show greater concern for others – the kind of concern we would want others to show to us.

We live in a world ruled by our clocks. We are so scheduled that the interruption of a friend or family member in need is just not permissible. There’s no time to sit and really hear out a person who is going through a hard trial, there’s no energy left for the one who needs us to get our hands dirty as we try to help them accomplish a difficult task. Is that how we want others to treat us?

As decisions are being made in our homes and in our churches and businesses, how many of us are considering the consequences of those decisions on others? Wouldn’t we want them to think about the impact on our lives if we were the ones to be affected? Even Christians have been so influenced by the world that we are no longer taking the commands of the scripture as commands. We seem to take them as suggestions. We act like what men want is to be obeyed and what the Bible says is to be considered advice that we can accept or reject.

If we accept the Word of God and believe that our trust is to be placed in God and not in man the exact opposite needs to be true. We will care about people as commanded in scripture. In fact Jesus’ example of compassion is one of the constant themes of the Gospels. He showed compassion to those who were sick, lost, hungry, demon possessed, and even to His enemies who He asked God to forgive at His crucifixion. Do you and I show this kind of compassion? Do we see it modeled in our churches?

As I have been thinking about the teaching from Matthew 7:12 yesterday I realized that as soon as the Preacher had said the last word of his benediction he quickly exited the sanctuary and we didn’t see him again. We were visitors and I would have liked to have met him. I thought to myself that he probably had a meeting. I can’t assume that he doesn’t care about visitors because I don’t know him.

It’s a good example of how we can appear not to care. He gave a sermon about taking time to do for others what we would want done for us then exited as quickly as possible. He’s moving along in the schedule not realizing that someone may need to be ministered to before he went.

This is another reminder that men care as men and God cares as God. In Psalm 25:6 the psalmist says, “Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old.”

 

God still remembers His mercy and steadfast love. He spoke to my heart in the church with the busy Pastor yesterday. I’ll continue to trust in Him to care for me.