Revelation 3:18 English Standard Version (ESV) I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.

Many bad things have been said about the church at Laodicea and with just cause but I must also acknowledge that the Lord said it isn’t too late to turn things around.

Verse 17 says; For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 

Pride of life keeps the disillusioned from recognizing what is really important. It takes a real humbling to make us realize everything we held dear is worthless. Those who hold the esteem of the world are blinded by ambition and greed. They cannot see what is truly important.

Luke 12:18-21 English Standard Version

¹⁸ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. ¹⁹ And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ ²⁰ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ ²¹ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

The attitude that the worldly life is all there is will be sorely disappointed when they wake up before the God of the universe and discover they have nothing to show for the life they lived. Legacy means nothing to the dead, even less to the spiritually dead.

Yet Jesus cries out to the spiritually dead, “It isn’t too late.”

Anoint me Lord that I might see your glory.

That is a personal prayer that cannot be spoken for another soul.

“Where the plural is used, the term is nautical, “frapping.””

This is a direct quote from Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words. Without context it seems rather confusing. Some may have nautical experience and be able to tell you that the frapping lines are the ropes that are attached to the lifeboats. They are used to pull the lifeboats over to enable passengers to get into the lifeboat. That is a significant item in the natural world but how does it fit in the biblical sense?

Acts 27:17 King James Version (KJV) Which when they had taken up, they used helps, undergirding the ship; and, fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands, strake sail, and so were driven.

Hidden within this passage is the context in which the nautical term was found. It is the word “helps”.

While studying the spiritual gifts of 1 Corinthians 12 it seemed rather ordinary to say that the gift of helps means nothing more than being available to help in service. Anyone can help without it being a gift of the spirit. What makes helps a gift of the spirit if it is nothing more than just being available?

“You’re a life saver.”

It is one of those comments we toss around trying to indicate gratitude for an effort which we struggle with doing on our own. Tying helps back to Acts 27:17 shows us that the act of the gift of helps takes on more than simple service. Undergirding is an effort to secure that which is weak thus reducing fear in others. Where the real help comes from is in the Greek word antilepsis which carries with it a sense of the laying on of hands. There is an anticipation within that act that the Holy Spirit is participating in the act.