Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins. (James 4:17)

LIVING RIGHTEOUSLY has been our theme this week as we have meditated on the words of James.

“The good you do today will often be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.” Those words were written on the wall of Mother Teresa’s home for children in Calcutta. I like that quote. It is a reminder of the call I have as a follower of Christ to meet the needs of others.

During my years serving as an ordained minister, I lived in the difficulties as well as the joys of life with my parishioners—sickness, healing, marriage, birth, illness, and death. Yet, I was not unlike any Christian who also shares in those events with others.

Ministers—whether they wear black pulpit robes, an executive’s attire, or a collarless T-shirt and hard hat—are all blessed or encumbered with the same challenges of ministry.

There were those times when I felt either too weak or too fatigued to move into the fray or to get involved in the hassle. I found it so much easier to avoid what I understood I should do. I knew it; I heard it; I felt it; but I did not do it.

In those times, the words of James rained down upon me in judgment. Those convicting words sprang forth into my consciousness: “Anyone, then, who knows the good . . . and doesn’t do it, sins.”

Do an act of goodness that you have been putting off. 

Drexel Rankin is a retired ordained minister who served in Indiana, Alabama, and Kentucky. He and his wife, Patty, live in Louisville, Kentucky.

© 2018 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission.