NEVER DESPISE THE WEAK

by Robert Brow  (www.brow.on.ca)    Aurora, Ontario         June 2008



 "I will stamp on you" said the lion. "Please, if you let me live, I
 will help you" said the mouse. "How can a weak little animal like you
 ever help the king of the jungle?" said the lion, but he spared the
 little mouse. A month later the lion was caught in a net. The more he
 tried to move the tighter the ropes trapped him. The little mouse
 arrived and said "I will free you." He then began chewing away at the
 ropes. An hour later the lion jumped out. He took the mouse on his
 back for a walk through the jungle to show the other animals who was
 the greatest among them.

 The moral of this parable is that we should never despise the weak
 among our friends. But it also points to Paul's description of the
 impact of the church in Corinth. "God chose what is weak in the world
 to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world,
 things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no
 one might boast in the presence of God" (1 Corinthians 1:27-29). Later
 speaking of his own weaknesses he said "Whenever I am weak, then I am
 strong" (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). Which illustrates why Jesus began the
 Sermon on the Mount with "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs
 is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3. Here poor in spirit does not
 mean lacking in the power of the Spirit, but a sense of one's own
 weakness, like the mouse, combined with faith that God can use us to
 accomplish great things).


Robert Brow
e-mail : browr@brow.on.ca
web site : www.brow.on.ca

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