Mr. Deeds have you wrapped around his finger?
There is a Sanctus Real song out there called "Deeds."
And it goes a little something like this:
Yeah, Mr. Deeds has got you wrapped around his finger
With what you think you need to do to be delivered
You look for accidents so you can be the hero
You wrote the charity check that ends in double zeros
Your life revolves around yourself,
You don't treat others very well
You say your faith will get you by and that
you won't be left behind
You might be right, but that's not good enough
Sound familiar?
Because it should.
The "deeds system" had been around for a very, very long time.
"Deeders", as I just now dubbed them, are people who think that just by doing good things, by being, essentially, a good person, they'll go to heaven.
WRONG.
Here's the chorus:
If you don't have faith you have nothing at all
If you don't have deeds your faith will fall
They can't be true without each other
you can't have one without the other
Aaaaaand there you have it.
The song says it all.
But there's another part to the deeds system: the feeling that you're not doing enough.
Let's head over to 2 Kings chapter 5 and hone in on one dude: Naaman.
Naaman was a very powerful army commander, and he had leprosy, one of the most dreaded diseases of ancient times.
Long story short (you have to read it for yourself!!), Naaman was sick and he sought out Elijah who was a great prophet of the Lord. Naaman traveled a long way to go see Elijah, and when he finally got to the house, Elijah didn't even go outside to see him!!
2 Kings Ch.5 v9-10: So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. 10 Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”
Well then. That's pretty straight forward. But then this happens:
11 But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.
Here is the perfect example of wanting a miracle and expecting something HUGE and FANTASTIC and SPARKLY with a loud fanfare in the background.
Now, you need to understand, the Damascus was kind of a sludgy little muddy thing, more of a stream than the Mighty River that the name Damascus brings to mind.
So when Naaman was told to go bathe in that, he was like "What, that's IT?! After I come alllll the way, I'm told to go WASH MYSELF in a sleezy little river? Not going to happen. If I wanted public humiliation I would just bathe in the clear waters back home." (PLEASE NOTE: This little hissy fit is not directly quoted from the Bible. Use your freakin' imagination.)
But then, as it (sometimes) does, the voice of reason broke through:
13 Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!”
14 So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.
There it is!
Sometimes we're so caught up in the glitz and glamor of things that we forget, Jesus isn't like that.
Humility is a virtue, guys.
I encourage you to not worry about going all the way to Africa or Haiti or some other far off place to "Do God's Will", but to start by ministering to that old man who lives down the street or to someone on the bus. As we just saw, sometimes it's the small things that have the biggest impact.
Song:
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