Reminders: Doing Our Part

A fire started in the grasslands close to a farm.  The volunteer fire department was called.  The volunteers arrived in a dilapidated old fire truck.  They rumbled straight toward the fire, drove right into the middle of the flames, and stopped!  The firefighters jumped from the truck and frantically started spraying water in all directions.  Soon they had snuffed out the fire.  As the farmer watched, he was grateful that his house and barn had been spared.  He quickly got his checkbook out and donated a thousand dollars to the volunteer fire department. 

A local news reporter asked the volunteer fire captain how they planned to use the funds.  The captain replied, “The first thing we're going to do is get the brakes on our fire truck fixed!”  It’s just a joke, but it is true that ordinary people are often called upon to do extraordinary things. 

We need to remember that with God’s help, we to can all do great things.  Doing good will not earn us eternal life, but it is what we are called to do in gratitude for the salvation offered to us through the death of Christ.  As it once said on a church message board: “Yes, God feeds the birds of the fields, but he doesn’t throw the worms into their nests.”  In other words, we can’t sit back and wait for God to do everything for us.  We need to do our part.

According to I Corinthians 12:12, we are Christ’s body on earth.  “Teresa of Avila explained it best when she said, “Christ has no body now but yours.  No hands, no feet on earth but yours.  Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world.  Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.  Yours are the hands through which he blesses the world.  Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes; you are His only body on earth.”  If you want to do Gods work, find a church and lend a hand.