Can You Do It?

From Our Brother Mike Ellis (Church for Men, Daytona Beach, FLA):

"Get what you can. Can what you get. Bury what you can."

My buddy, Pastor Ray Kelley from the Daytona Outreach Center spoke these words today during his morning message. Pastor Ray told us that the "can principle" is how the world teaches us to live everyday. Me first. Give me some. I want this. I want that. Me, me, me and me. We grab what we can. Stick it in a can and then keep it where no one else can find it or get it. We're like dogs burying bones. We call ourselves "Christians" who love God but we don't give love, show love or share love with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We shout "Praise God" but we don't love people who don't look like us. We put our hands in the air while we sing worship songs in church but we won't use those arms to hug a dirty, stinky homeless person. We join hands in church but we don't reach out to the single mother across the street from the church.

If anyone boasts, "I love God," and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won't love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can't see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You've got to love both.---1 John 4:19-21 (The Message)

We all, including myself, need to stop storing love in a "can" and keeping it to ourselves. We need to stop judging others when we say, "There is no way he can ever change!" If we love God then we should love people who don't look like us, act like us and smell like us. We all "can" do it but only with God's help. Jesus was blunt: "No chance at all if you think you can pull it off by yourself. Every chance in the world if you let God do it." ---Mark 10:27 (The Message)