The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1929, Page 184

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

=

. depends on His Church and its people.

184 THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

the work of the Lord. It is a bad sign because it
makes it plain that some of us are not doing their
duty; we are not responding to the Lord’s “I have
need of them” with that willingness that the owner
of the ass and her colt showed when the dear Savior
needed them to make His entry into Jerusalem. In
this connection we should like to have our readers
read a. few paragraphs which recently appeared in
another church-paper : —

“Reading the Gospel, we are struck with the
extent to which Jesus depended on His friends for
the things He needed for His work. He was poor
in all material things, and for these He looked to
His followers. So Simon gave Him the use of his
boat and Matthew his big house. One friend gave
Him an ass to ride on, another his garden to rest
in, another his upper room in which to eat the
passover with His disciples. And there were women
of Galilee who ministered unto Him of their sub-
stance. He had nothing of His own, and all these
material helps must come to Him from His friends.

“Are you a friend of Jesus? You hope you are.
You wish to be. His friends have something you-
wish to have — a peace, a joy, a strength, a hope, of
which you know something and would like to know
more. He has a work to do in your neighborhood
for which He asks your help. He wants to be known
by all the people you know, to get into their lives
and homes, to win their children, to make your
neighborhood clean, to make it a good place for
children to grow up in, a place in which men and
women can live in peace and trust. For this He
For all
material things He reckons on them. He looks to

_ them to give Him of what they have for the work

He would do.
should ?
needs and the help you could give, had you the
thoughtful and generous heart we see in those

Are you helping? helping as you

- Gospel disciples ?

“Tt is not only in your neighborhood He is
working. He is working to make our nation His.
He wants to make His Church such that it shall

_Teayen the nation’s life. But for all material helps

He depends on those who are His friends. In these
things He is still poor, and we must minister to
Him of our substance.

‘Nor is it only one nation He seeks, but all
nations. Have you a better wish for the world
than that it should know Christ and that He should

ate rule in its life? ‘Thy kingdom come,’ we pray.
_ It cannot be without our help. We must minister
_ to Him of our substance. Are you doing it? doing

\

Or do you grudge Him the help He-

it worthily? doing it with thought and conscience
and gratitude and an honest desire to win souls
for heaven ?”

If these thoughts were ever present with us,
would two-thirds of mankind be still without the
knowledge of Christ? Would we ever be heard
complaining because of the demands which mis-
sions make upon our pocketbooks ? F.J.L.

How a Boy Became a Systematic Giver.

The first money this boy ever earned was seventy
cents, which his grandfather paid him for dropping
corn. When the grandfather put the seven dimes
into the hand of the boy, he said: “Don’t spend all
of this on the train for candy; keep some of it for
church and school.” One of the first Bible-verses
this boy’s mother drilled into his memory was:
“Honor the Lord with thy substance and the first-
fruits of all thine increase; so shall thy barns be
filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out
with new wine.” Proy.3,9. Such teaching pre-
pared the soil for the other seed which was sown
later. :

When this boy was going to high school, he took
care of the church of which he was a member. One
Saturday his pastor gave him a package of leaflets
on the subject of regular giving, saying: “Put them
in the pews, Billy, and keep them there two or three
Sundays.” Billy did as he had been told. As the
people entered the pews, they would pick them up
and glance them over. Some would put them in
their pockets to take home, but most of them
dropped them on the seat and sat down on them.
For four succeeding Sundays the pastor called atten-
tion to the leaflets, but most of them were left on

-the seats, or they fell on the floor. Then the pastor

told Billy to take what was left and throw them in
the furnace. ‘The left-over leaflets filled a half-
bushel basket. As Billy was about to throw the
leaflets in the furnace, the thought struck him that
he had never thought it worth while to read one of
them himself; that, while thinking hard of others
for letting the pastor plead in vain, he himself was
in the same condemnation.

So then and there he read one of the leaflets
through to the end, the arguments for regular and
proportionate giving, and the blessings visited upon
those who had tried the plan. The arguments
gripped him hard, and he said to himself: “I ought
to give regularly to the Lord and His work.” The
words of his mother and his whole training told