The Separator - Martin Wiles

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Genesis 2:18 NLT

I felt the sting of separation repeatedly.

While growing up, I experienced the challenges of living in a lower middle-lower-middle-class family. Dad worked on an ice cream truck and at a local hardware store when I was a small child. When I was six, he entered the ministry and began preaching. His pay was meager at best. Mom supplemented our income by working at the local Chevrolet dealership, a practice she continued through our many moves.

Separation came when I couldn’t have all the things my peers had. Not only was I separated by appearance—I was a skinny, freckle-faced kid—but I was also separated by brands. Occasionally, Mom bought me Converse tennis shoes and Levi genes, but most of the time I had to be satisfied with what she could afford. And since Dad never stayed at any one church for long, I was always the new kid at school.

Like Adam, I felt the pain of separation . . . of being alone. God had created the earth, plants, trees, sea life, and humans—but only one person. Though Adam was in a garden full of life, he was alone. No one else like him existed. So God created Eve.

God created us for relationships. When we don’t have them—or when they’re disrupted for whatever reason—loneliness takes over and makes life miserable. The same happens when we don’t have a relationship with our Creator. God had the fellowship of His Trinitarian nature—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit—but He wanted more. He desired us.

Sin manufactures separation, resulting in a unique type of loneliness. It separates us from the God who loves us and will make our lives miserable. Other relationships and possessions won’t satisfy our despondent state of existence. Only by repentance will God restore us to a right relationship with Him. Through daily confession of our sins of omission and commission, we keep this relationship healthy.

God doesn’t want us to be separated from Him or others. We were made for relationships—not loneliness. Things or people can’t fill the place reserved for God alone. And when things aren’t right with God, they won’t be right with others.

Don’t let anything separate you from the One who loves you more than any other person could.

Tweetable: Whom do you feel separated from?

Prayer: Father, thank You for loving us immeasurably. Make our relationship with You what You desire it to be. 

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Flashback Friday - Honesty-Still the Best Policy - Martin Wiles

Honesty—Still the Best Policy 

How could anyone cheat an elderly person? And simply to pad their pocket.

I was working my first job at Orkin Exterminating Company. Not my idea of the ideal job but all that was available at the moment. And it was paying my bills. Shortly after starting, I was transferred from spaying the insides of houses to treating the underneaths. This was even more distasteful. But when I was called to install a moisture barrier under an elderly lady’s home and was choked by the dust I encountered, my attitude deteriorated even more. How could a salesperson sell an elderly person something they obviously didn’t need? Honesty was definitely not his policy. Making money was. Read more...

Tweetable: Where is honesty on your priority list?

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Filtered for Purity - Martin Wiles

But Daniel was determined not to defile himself by eating the food and wine given to them by the king. Daniel 1:8 NLT

The difference between using one and not using one often means contamination, days off the trail, and painful diarrhea.

I met him on a guided hike. He was the first person I’d ever talked to who had thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail. I had questions, and he had answers. But one story rose above the rest: his bout with giardia. Trail angels had left fresh fruit in a stream by one of the AT shelters. Hunger for more than trail food consumed him. He grabbed the fruit, sunk his teeth into it, and soon regretted his decision. He lost two days of walking, sick from contaminated water.

Never have I drunk from an unfiltered water source. Generally, I use a PUR water filter which guarantees to remove ninety-nine percent of germs. Fortunately, I’ve never suffered from giardia. Purity is important.

Purity was on Daniel’s mind. He was among the first of the exiles to experience deportation to Babylon—a subject of foreign invaders who worshiped pagan gods and read pagan literature. But Daniel stood out, along with his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The king chose them to serve him, but they first needed preparation—which included eating the king’s food and drinking his wine. A practice that would defile Daniel according to Jewish laws. He offered a suggestion. He and his friends wanted to try vegetables and water. At the end of ten days, they looked healthier than those eating the king’s food.

The believer’s body is a temple of God’s Spirit. He lives there permanently and continuously. What I put into my body affects Him. But it’s not the food I eat or the liquids I drink—although they may affect my physical condition. Contamination is more about my thoughts, actions, and words.

Remaining pure means thinking on what is true, just, righteous, noble, kind, uplifting, honorable, and lovely. My thoughts lead to actions, which will be pure or impure depending on what I think on. Actions reflect my character. Through them, people see the real me. And the real me means more than the words I speak.

Nietzsche, the atheistic philosopher who proclaimed God was dead, said of Christians; “I will believe in the Redeemer of the Christians when they act like they are redeemed.”

God is holy, makes His children holy in position, and expects us to be pure in our lifestyles. 

Commit to a pure lifestyle.

Tweetable: Are you pursuing purity? 

Prayer: Father, enable us to live pure lives as good representatives of the pure God we serve. 

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Give Until It Hurts - Martin Wiles

“And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’” Matthew 25:40 NLT

She wanted others to have the educational opportunity she never received, so she gave.

America was stunned in 1995 when an elderly woman named Oseola McCarty donated $150,000 to the University of Mississippi for their scholarship fund. She was 87 and had been forced to drop out of school in the sixth grade to care for her family. For sixty years, she had made a living washing clothes for hire in Hattiesburg, saving as much as she could. Now she wanted others to have educational opportunities she hadn’t and made that possible by giving away her life savings to the school.

Comparatively, what she gave might not have seemed like much. Like the ones Jesus told about in His story about the final judgment. They were allowed into His eternal Kingdom because they responded when they saw Him thirsty and hungry, when they visited Him in prison, when they gave Him clothes, and when they visited Him when He was sick. By doing such things for others, Jesus told them they had actually done them to Him.

Giving is parcel to the original human genome. Adam gave to the animals by naming them. He gave to Eve by loving her. They gave to each other and to the garden God placed them in by tending to the animals and plants. And they gave to their children and grandchildren. 

Giving is God’s plan. The entire Bible illuminates the principle in one way or another. Jesus illustrates it well in the story of the widow who placed her last piece of money into the Temple treasury. Jesus took giving to the maximum by giving Himself on the cross.

For believers, giving should be a lifestyle. It’s more than throwing money in a church offering plate and thinking I’ve done my part—although that is my part. Giving is searching for opportunities to give in ways that make a difference in other’s lives. That causes them to take notice and wonder why I’m helping them. Giving is petitioning God for the opportunities and the means with which to share my time, talents, and money.

Giving until it hurts is a lifetime of actions—prompted by pure motives—in which I lay down myself for them as Christ did His life for the world. 

Ask for giving opportunities, and watch what God will do through you.

Tweetable: Is your giving hurting you?

Prayer: Father, give us the opportunities and the desire to pour ourselves into the lives of others. 

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