Telling the Truth

Jill Briscoe: Loving God with all your mind means if you're not going to be pressed into the mold of the world—and what is that mold? Self is the heart of it. If you're not going to be pressed into that mold, then you're going to have to inform your mind. Garbage in, garbage out; truth in, truth out.

As you're informed, you'll find yourself being transformed, transfigured, metamorphosized.

Guest (Male): Today on Telling the Truth, Jill Briscoe concludes her message, "Helping the Hurting," and shares how your care for those in need bears testimony to the love of Christ. Far too many Christians avoid the book of Revelation because of its mystery, but this final book of the Bible is filled with hope for you.

Stuart Briscoe wants to help you unravel the mystery of the end times with his eight-message series, "End Times: What's Going On?" Through the end of this week only, it's our thanks for your gift today to keep this broadcast going strong. So call today to request your copy at 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now here's Jill Briscoe with the conclusion of her message, "Helping the Hurting."

Jill Briscoe: I remember as a teenager one of my teachers stopping in the middle of a French class—I have no idea what I was doing, but I wasn't doing what I should have been doing—and saying, "Jill Ryder, you are the most selfish girl I have ever met in the whole of my teaching career." I flushed. Everyone was horrified, but I knew it was true. I didn't know what to do about it.

Of course, it wasn't until I received that compassionate heart of Jesus that I found the power to do anything about it—to stop behaving like a bug and start flying like a butterfly. It all has to do with the mind. Loving God with all your mind means if you're not going to be pressed into the mold of the world—and what is that mold? Self is the heart of it.

If you're not going to be pressed into that mold, then you're going to have to inform your mind. Garbage in, garbage out; truth in, truth out. As you're informed, you'll find yourself being transformed, transfigured, metamorphosized. Loving God with all your mind means you are in the Bible and the Bible is in you. You are memorizing it, you are reading it, you are letting it flow over you, and you are meditating on it.

That's being informed, because God will inform you then and direct you in the daily doings of your Nazareth living so that you will begin to see the man in the ditch. What we think we are, the quality of our lives, is related to the quality of our thinking. Giving up our body involves our mind, and that's reasonable, Romans tells us.

It doesn't matter how young you are or old you are. I'm very encouraged. Gary Collins has written a wonderful book on the mind. He talks about our brain cells. I didn't want to read this chapter because I was frightened of what I'd find out. However, he tells us you and I are born with more brain cells than the stars in the sky. Did you know that?

That little baby that's just been born lying there has more brain cells than the stars in the sky. What an incredible thing, don't you think? Now, that's the good news. This is the bad news: we lose—every one of us, are you ready?—100,000 cells a day that are never replaced. It's the only organ in the body that does not replace itself.

100,000. Now, that's the problem, right? That's a big problem, except you realize it doesn't make a bit of difference because you can live till 100 and it won't make any difference when you have as many as the stars in the sky. What's so wonderful is that you can go on informing that brain of yours until the day you die in order not to be conformed or pressed into the mold of the world, but to have His mindset.

What is His mindset? His mindset is the mindset of the Good Samaritan. So loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength is what we'll address next. Loving God with all your strength has to do with lifting people out of the ditch. We love God with all our strength when we put out energy in loving, compassionate acts of service for those who cannot help themselves.

How will I and you know if we love God, if we're a sheep and not a goat? Well, if I love other people as much as I love my selfish self. I know that's irritating some of you because I keep saying it. We are so self-saturated. Isn't it good to look after yourself, Jill? If you walk into our bookstore, you will see if you ask our book ladies what's the best seller, it will be a self-help book.

It will be a self-help book. It will not be an other-help book. The section on missions is minimal. The section on self-help absorbs most of the bookstores' and the authors' work in this country specifically. Let me just read you something that's really quite funny. Erma Bombeck: "During the last year, I've dissected my marriage, examined my motives for buying, interpreted my fantasies, come to grips with midlife, found inner peace, outer flab, charted my astrological stars, become my best and only friend. I have brought order to my life, meditated, given up guilt, adjusted to the numerology, and spent every living hour understanding me, interpreting me, and loving me. And you know what? I'm bored to death of me."

I meet women all over the world who are bored and they have never spent so much time self-helping themselves because people don't realize that it's as you lose yourself, you find yourself. You want to heal? Help somebody else to heal. And that's going to take strength. Many people say to me, actually more and more, so I don't know what I'm looking like, "Who helps you, Jill? You just give out and give out and run all over the world and give and give and give. Where do you get your input and help?"

Sometimes, many times, they say it rather accusingly, as if they know I'm not getting any help. I haven't quite figured this out. Well, one of my wonderful verses that I have in my Bible is Proverbs 11:25. This is what it says: "He who refreshes others will himself be refreshed." He that refreshes others will himself—where do I get my energy? From you. You give out and you receive back.

Yes, physically you're tired, but in every other way, you receive back. A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor. You give and it comes back to you, Proverbs 22:9. So you say, Jill, I'm to love my neighbor as myself. And just who is my neighbor? Jesus answered simply, "The man in the ditch."

Who is that? You, along with the young Sadducee man, may ask. The person in the ditch is the one robbed of the hope of heaven, or robbed by another woman of her husband, or the child robbed of her mother by her mother's boss, or the college kid robbed of his opportunity by the recession, or the teenager robbed of her virginity by her high school date.

The person in the ditch is the woman robbed of her reputation by gossip, or the old person robbed of their health by disease. There are plenty of people in the ditch, but not ever enough Good Samaritans to go around. So being a Good Samaritan means getting down off your evangelical donkey and getting yourself into the ditch.

Now, we've got a lot of excuses. What about the priest? Are we a priest? Are we a Pharisee? No, no, we say immediately, indignant. Why didn't he get off his donkey and get in the ditch? Well, he was too busy running to Bible studies in the temple. He didn't have time. Anyway, the man had got himself into this trouble; the man could get himself out.

Before we condemn the Pharisee, remember that in each of us, there is a Pharisee. Maybe the excuse is we're a Levite. "It's not my gift," he says. The Levite was a man of letters. The Levite was a scribe. He just wrote it up. He just wrote it up. He would be thinking as he looked at the man in the ditch: "Who is responsible for this poor fellow? The temple guards? How will we rectify this? Is there enough money in the temple offering to send somebody back to do something with this? Who is responsible for this man? Is the state responsible? Is the church responsible?" It's a good debate; I'll ask my fellow Levites when I get back home to Jerusalem. And you know, not only have I discovered the Pharisee in me, but I have also discovered the Levite in me.

Guest (Male): How do you really show others the love of Christ? That's what Jill Briscoe is talking about on today's Telling the Truth, and she's coming right back with more. But first, your support helps people like Grace grow stronger in their walk with Christ. She shares: "The teachings always make me reflect on my Christian journey and my walk with God. Messages are simple and full of deep revelation. Thanks for being such a huge blessing to this generation. God bless your family and the ministry in Jesus' name."

Thanks, Grace. That's the kind of impact your partnership has on listeners around the world. So if you've never given before, please consider a gift today to help more people experience life in Christ. And through the end of this week, we'll show our appreciation for your financial support by sending you Stuart Briscoe's eight-message series, "End Times: What's Going On?"

In this series that Stuart prepared for years to preach, he'll dive into the apostle John's writings in the book of Revelation to help you uncover how God is unveiling His prophetic plan and what it means for you today. You'll discover how to read the book of Revelation, the promises God makes for the end times, and how its prophetic words can strengthen your faith today.

But the offer ends this week, and you don't want to miss the hopeful message contained in the Bible's final book. So request your copy of "End Times" when you give today, and thank you for helping more people around the world experience life in Christ. Call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now we head back to Jill Briscoe.

Jill Briscoe: And you know, not only have I discovered the Pharisee in me, but I have also discovered the Levite in me. I was literally sitting on an airplane writing in a Bible study book about this parable when the guy next to me, a nice respectable young businessman, said, "What are you doing? You look as though you're writing a book."

And I said, "Well, I am, actually." And he laughed, and I laughed. And I said, "I really am." And so he said, "You are?" And I said, "Yes, I am." He said, "You're an author?" I said, "Yes." He said, "What are you writing about?" I said, "The man in the ditch." He said, "What man in the ditch?" So I explained a bit, and then I just cut him off and went back because I had to finish that chapter by the time I got back; I was busy writing it up.

A little voice said to me, "He is the man in the ditch." I was literally too busy writing about him to see him. So I put my book away and attended to him, and he truly was a man in the ditch. His wife had just left him; he needed somebody to get their arms around him and lift him out. So you can be a Pharisee, you can be a Levite—very, very easy to do—or you can be a Samaritan, someone who cares for the Jew.

That was the twist in Jesus' story. The Jew was in the ditch. The Samaritan, who hated Jews and the Jews hated Samaritans, got off his donkey and got down in the ditch and cared for him—somebody who was so unlike him, somebody that he just didn't understand, somebody who he was very prejudiced about.

Jesus had such a heart for people like that. He was always with the tax collectors and sinners. He was always with the lepers. He was always with the outcasts of society, and so should we be. This heart of compassion that we can grow or allow God to grow in us doesn't worry itself about being too busy attending Bible study to attend to the needs of the neighbor.

Compassion doesn't ask, "How much will it cost me?" He didn't say, "How much is it going to cost me to put this man in the inn?" And he didn't look at his old donkey—how do we know the donkey was young?—and say, "If I put this big fat man on my poor old donkey, am I going to have a donkey left by the time I get him to the inn? Then how am I going to buy another donkey?"

How do we know he was rich? How do we know he could afford it? We don't. We don't know any of those details. Compassion puts the man on his own donkey and walks to the inn. I was reminded of that when we took a young man into our home for about two years who was just a young businessman who lost his job and then couldn't find another one.

He was out of work for nearly two years—was not for the hope of trying, I assure you. In the end, what happened was I was practically faced with a choice: I could let that young man have my donkey and I could walk, which really meant giving him my car and hitching lifts myself, or I couldn't. And that's where the rubber meets the road.

I had a bit of a struggle about that, putting that man on my donkey, if you really want to know, because I have a Pharisee in me and I have a Levite: let him find his own donkey; he got himself into this mess, he can get himself out of this mess, etc. It's not good to enable him. Well, compassion doesn't ask any of those questions. Compassion does it anyway.

Compassion doesn't say, "What if he doesn't appreciate me lifting him out of the ditch?" A drowning man will fight the person that comes to save him. I don't need that; I'm putting myself out for this person. What if he doesn't appreciate me? I always remember Dr. David Karling, a good friend of ours who worked among lepers in the Sudan on these floating islands.

He and his wife lived on these floating islands that the people live on on this huge lake in the middle of Africa. They didn't have any medical care. He was one doctor for a million people. And when he came to speak at one of our missions festivals, I had a coffee for him in my home, and one lady said, "Do they appreciate the sacrifice you've made, Dr. Karling?"

And he said, "No, they don't." And she said, "Well, that must be very hard." And he said, "Yeah, it's not easy. It's not easy." And she said, "Well, why don't they?" And he said, "Well, they're of another faith and they believe that I'm doing this to get points with Allah. So why should they thank me? I've never been thanked once for any operation, for anything I've ever done for them."

But compassion doesn't say, "Will I get appreciated?" Compassion gets in the ditch. And what we have to do is come where they are, lift them out, pay for their recovery, and follow through. Four things—and I don't have time to develop them. You have to get where they are. You have to open your home and heart, invite that neighbor in for that cup of tea, and just go where they are.

Live it, feel it, put yourself out. And then you have to pay for the recovery. You have to stay in the inn. You have to look after them. You have to follow through. Don't just dump them on somebody else's responsibility bed; check up on them. And then, of course, if we do get off our high horses and get in the ditch, we will know that refreshing that comes when you refresh others.

It will come back to you, but that should not be your motive; that's just the perks of being a Good Samaritan and helping the helpless. Now, as I finish, I want to read you something from one of my favorite young people, still only in his early 30s, an OM missionary. These OM missionaries are some of my favorite people; they are in the hardest places and the hardship places all over the world—that's their thing.

They're young, most of them are single. This young man has been everywhere, done that, and got how many T-shirts. Specifically, he serves on one of the gospel ships, the Doulos and the Logos, that have a book exhibition in the base and sail into places that missionaries are not allowed and get out there and just sell Bibles and Christian literature in the hardest places.

This is what he says. This is his testimony. He's a Good Samaritan. "I clowned for AIDS children in Romania. I did open airs during political rallies in South Africa. I shared my testimony with a Russian new-ager. I got lost in the souks of Dubai. I preached in the slums of Sri Lanka, had a day out in Malaysia. I sang to orphans at Mother Teresa's orphanage.

I went to the opera in Odessa. I prayed over Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Egypt from just one mountain. I gave out tracts at a Thai water buffalo race. I chipped rust from the ship in dock at Cape Town. I sang praises to God, Paul and Silas style, at 2 a.m. in a Turkish prison for my faith. I have been a cog in the Doulos ministry.

I've shared my home with people from Albania to Zimbabwe. I've experienced discipleship, hardship, friendship, workmanship, leadership, worship, fellowship, stewardship, and worship on God's ship, the Doulos. Be nice to have another life. So do you love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength? And do you love your neighbor as you love your selfish self?"

Guest (Male): This is Telling the Truth, and you've just heard Jill Briscoe with her message, "Helping the Hurting." Jill's not yet done, though; she'll be back in a moment to answer some questions about today's message. Do you ever wonder where this world is headed or what the end of days hold for humanity? If so, there's no better place to search for answers than the book of Revelation.

And while many shy away from this final and mysterious book of the Bible, it contains so much encouragement for you today. That's why we're excited to send you Stuart's eight-message series, "End Times: What's Going On?" as our thanks for your gift of support to keep broadcasts like today's message coming your way and going out through Telling the Truth's global ministry.

This series helps you unravel the mystery of the end times and discover the hopeful assurance it brings for you as a Christian. We pray this series motivates you to holiness, obedience, unshakable peace, and a passion to make each day count for Christ. This special resource offer ends this week, and we don't want you to miss out on this powerful series. So request your copy of "End Times" when you call to give today. And thank you for helping more people around the world experience life in Christ. Call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or give online at tellingthetruth.org.