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YOU CARE—RAILROAD’S DON’T:

You care about your family. You care about your friends. You care about your health. You care about your veteran status. You care about your volunteer service. You care about your faith. You even care about your career, the company you work for, and the manner in which you get your job done. You care… But what do you do when the things you care about just don’t care for you?

That’s a question many are now asking on the railroad. Recent actions show that rail companies don’t give two cares about their workforce. Sadder still is the consequence of such an attitude of non-care. It is felt in the lives of real people. Yes, the actions of the railroad affect living human beings physically, emotionally and spiritually. Human beings who were created in the image of God and fall under His care. Yet, the railroads don’t care! So what do you do when the things you care about just don’t care for you?

This is what you do. You seek the One who cares for you the most. Who is that you may ask? That would be Christ Jesus. Everyone’s heard it a thousand times, ‘For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son that whomever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life,” but, I ask you to stop for a minute and consider this verse anew, in light of the railroad's direction. On the railroad, you’re simply a ‘B’ number, a dollar sign on a sheet of paper. If you have no value, you’re gone, no consideration, no remorse; you’re nothing to them, expendable. Contrast this to Christ, “who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant made in human likeness. And being found in the appearance of a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” [Philippians 2:8]

Do you think the railroad owner would leave the comfort to take on the form of a T, Y and E employee? Do you think the managerial class would humble themselves and live the Maintenance of Way or Carman lifestyle? No, they wouldn’t, for to do so means they have to identify with the ‘lower beings’ and hence understand their plight. So they willingly exempt themselves, don’t they? Not so with Christ. Hebrews 4:15 reads, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Christ humbled himself. He walked among us, suffered among us, loved among us, grieved among us; human experience in all its ugliest forms Christ bore to the point of the cross and the grave.

Don’t expect the railroads to humble themselves, nor expect them to carry their cross, nor care. So what do you do when the things you care about just don’t care for you? You take those cares to Christ Jesus and he’ll take care of them for you.

F.O.C.R. Member

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Mosquitoes are not nationalised everywhere; but worries are. Their sting is not outwardly perceptible, but it is painful enough within. Some of our foreign friends want to know, as they retire to rest themselves, “How to make outdoor life attractive to mosquitoes?”-a humorous enough puzzle. We know, however, one thing-that mosquitoes come without our consent; but that we are foolish enough to invent worries-to entertain worries-and to do everything else with them but cast them where we know that all our cares may and ought to be cast.

W. M. Statham

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My Sustenance - Christafari

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Humiliation of soul under God’s mighty hand

I. The text insists upon the recognition of the agency of God in all our afflictions. “The mighty hand of God.”

Now, observe that this recognition embraces, not second causes, but the immediate hand of God. We must go at once to the First Cause; or else we dishonour God under every trial.

Then observe, again, that this recognition must be of the hand, from which there is no escape: “the mighty hand of God.” I see His “mighty hand” in creation, forming the beautiful world in which I live; and in providence I see that same hand regulating every event in the universe. And if I recognize that hand aright, I shall see it no less in, and bringing to pass, every affliction with which I am assaulted. It could not have come to me without a “mighty hand.” And while I see this, it is in vain to resist it.

But, then, this recognition must be of the hand of God, “the mighty hand of God.” And how sweet is this! “the hand of God.” Power alone would make me afraid, but it is not the hand of a tyrant-it is the hand of God; my covenant God; my God, who gave His dear Son for me; my God, who has promised to keep and to bless me, and to take me eventually to His kingdom of glory. What infant feels alarmed when its mother’s hand is upon it?

II. The text shows us the spirit in which that Divine agency is to be recognised. “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God.” This includes a deep sense of the malignity and evil of sin, which brings all our sorrows, as committed against a holy God and a righteous law, and also especially its aggravation, as against a God of love and of grace, as revealed in the gospel.

III. A promise to encourage and to enforce this recognition of the hand of God: “That He may exalt you in due time.” There is a threefold exaltation, of which the Scripture speaks.

The first is an exaltation in the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. To stand complete before my God, with a justification in which His own eye can see no fault; to feel that I am an “heir of God,” a “joint heir with Christ,” and that eternity with all its blessings is my own forever.

But, secondly, there is an exaltation also from the deepest woe and trial into which we can be brought, and of which the Scriptures speak. David says, “I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined unto me and heard my cry; He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock and established my goings; and He hath but a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God.”

And then there is exaltation to the throne of glory. And the first is connected with the last; he that is exalted by the imputed righteousness of Christ, shall eventually be exalted to the throne of glory.

~ James Sherman

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'PSALM 55:22' by Peter Walker

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The benefit of afflictions

I. The hand of God is an expression used in various parts of Scripture to denote the Almighty’s interference with the sons of men, in a way both of providence and grace. Thus in Act_4:28 it signifies His eternal purpose and executive power. In Psa_104:28 it denotes His providential bounty and goodness. In Joh_10:29 it denotes His mighty power to preserve and defend. It is used likewise with reference to the inspiration of the prophets: “The hand of the Lord was on Elijah.” In other places it expresses the help of the Almighty. Nehemiah and Ezra repeatedly acknowledge the Divine aid which was vouchsafed in these words, “according to the good hand of God upon us.” The Psalmist uses it to denote God’s merciful corrections (Psa_32:4; Psa_38:2). It is clearly in this latter sense that we are to regard the expression in our text. Is it asked, then, how God lifts up His heavy hand upon His people, and how they may know that it is lifted up? I answer, in various ways. In all things He consults the spiritual good of His children. He varies therefore the mode of correction, as well as the degree of it, to their peculiar circumstances and situations. Upon some His hand is lifted up in a way which is only known to themselves and to their God. Their comforts are withdrawn. Their evidences are clouded. Perhaps they are reduced to the very brink of despair. But the Lord does not always correct from His own immediate presence. The devil may be the executioner of His chastisement, as in Job’s case. The wicked, too, are spoken of by the Psalmist as the Lord’s hand (Psa_17:13). They may oppose, they may persecute. Worldly losses, pain, sickness, disappointments, interruptions of domestic happiness, the death of friends and beloved relatives, are all tokens of the uplifting of the mighty hand of God.

II. Our duty under the uplifted hand of God. Humble yourselves, that is, be lowly. Yield to the hand which smites you. Say, “It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good.” The precepts of the gospel go directly counter to our depraved nature. Were it not for the restraining grace of God, there is no length of repining which we should not run. But the believer has been made a new creature in Christ Jesus. Grace has called him back to that Sovereign from whom he had revolted. The expression in our text, “humble yourselves,” seems to imply three things; consciousness of a necessity for the trial, patience under the pressure of it, and a believing expectation of deliverance.

III. The happy effects resulting from this duty of humbling ourselves. “That He may exalt you in due time.” This expression may denote the removal of the trial when it has effected its purpose; or the esteem which the believer frequently obtains, even from an ungodly world, by his firmness and consistency of conduct; or that eminence in the graces and blessed fruits of the Spirit which beautifies his soul and renders him really exalted. For holiness, or, in other words, conformity to the image of the Savior, is alone true greatness.

~ W. C. Wilson