Pastor John,
I was reading the exchange between some folk on WhatsApp today regarding a shed, and it reminded me of an experience that I had with Jesus – He taught me a very valuable lesson.
Many years ago I went through a period where I would do my best to help anybody that I could, every time that I could, with any project they were working on. I wanted to do those things for people.
It was during one of those projects that the Lord spoke to my heart very clearly and changed my understanding about what I was doing. The Lord told me:
“You haven’t done one thing ‘unto Me’ until you have taken care of all of your responsibilities at home, first.”
With that startling but gentle instruction came this immediate understanding:
If I was tending to other’s needs before taking care of my wife, I was stealing what belonged to her and giving it to someone else. And only what I was doing above and beyond all of my normal responsibilities counted with God. I received no credit from the Lord for substituting something I was supposed to be doing with another task.
It gave me a new way of looking at the choices I had been making, and convicted my heart that I had been giving away what belonged to my wife. I wonder now if she had been praying, because God showed up to help.
The Lord was very kind to me in His instruction; I had been trying very hard to do good, but I found out it wasn’t holy.
Jerry