Strengthen Others

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Sunday morning, 8th January, the year 2023, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. If we go to Romans in the New Testament, Chapter 15 and I am reading from verse 1:

We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbour for his good, leading to edification. For even Christ did not please Himself…”

We who are mature in the faith, do not live to please ourselves but rather to help those who are weak and struggling. Jesus never lived to please Himself. Those of us who are strong in the faith have a responsibility to support the weak in the faith. The Christian life centres on strengthening others. Remember Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane when the High Priest’s soldiers came to arrest Him? He said, “Let these go their way.” John 18:8, always protecting others.

I remember as a little boy of about 7 years old, I had just started school and my little brother was starting his first year. He was 5 years old and my mother told me, very specifically, “Angus look after him." Well, we were in different classes but we would meet together during break and have our sandwiches together. We would meet at big break and I would make sure that he was alright and then we would walk home from school together. One day my little brother was busy talking to friends on the side of the road and I was crossing the road. I turned around in the middle of the road and shouted to him to hurry up. At that moment a motorcar hit me and knocked me clean into a ditch. The poor lady was beside herself. She put both of us in the car and took us home. She was extremely traumatised and apologised to my mother. My little brother was crying his eyes out. My mother ran over to him, put her arms around him and said, “My darling, are you alright?” And through the tears, he said, “Mother, it wasn’t me who got it. It was Angus.”

Sometimes in protecting the weaker or the younger, we need to take the blows. Go out today and protect those who are less strong than yourselves.

Jesus bless you and goodbye.