"Who Can I Bless?"

"Who Can I Bless?"

  
      "Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34).
    "When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple standing by, whom He loved, He saith unto His mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith He to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home" (John 19:26-27).

    In those times when we feel the most personally needy, we can be sure the Holy Spirit seeks to direct our attention unto the challenges of others.  The same Christ who prayed for and ministered to others while hanging upon His cross now lives in those who believe.  Thereby He moves upon and within us to transform our hours of trial into opportunities of triumphant overcoming of self-centeredness.  Rather than dissolve into the black hole of "Woe is me!", the Spirit of the Lord Jesus offers ascent upward and away from ourselves.  "Who can I bless?"  Perhaps a prayer, or a communication of some sorts, or a self-sacrificial act of love, as led and enabled by the Holy Spirit, paves for us the same path one traveled by Feet now scarred with nails because "the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28). 

    The presence of the Spirit of the Lord Jesus revolutionizes our response to need when we discover His capacity to transform experiences of personal sorrow into ministry unto others.  Our faith began in such a wonder of love, and the Christ who began it now dwells and walks in us (II Corinthians 6:16).  We must therefore expect much opportunity to "walk, even as He walked" (I John 2:6).  Certainly, no more challenging truth presents itself to us from the pages of Scripture.  However, no more blessed truth declares to us the momentous effect of our Lord's saving grace.  Yes, rather than cast us into a pit of despair, our sorrows escort us to the summit of Christ's love whereby we discover the joy of His devotion to His Father and the needs of others.  This is life, the life of the Lord Jesus, and this is our life as He dwells and walks in us.

"We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you."
"Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."
(Philippians 2:4-5)