Action
I came across this quote from Donald Miller: "I can’t imagine what would happen if every Christian felt it incumbent upon themselves to worship Christ through serving the poor and oppressed, and reaching out to the marginalized. More and more this has become religion to me. Not that reading the Psalms under a flickering candle isn’t beautiful, but faith should find action quick." So what would happen if Christians stopped talking and started acting? What if we took the words of Jesus literally? What if we truly believed (faith & action) the following statements of Jesus: "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." "I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." "The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." "...I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..." "In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in Heaven." What would these things look like in every day life? How can the church participate in this as well? Comments???
posted by Jamie @ 1:29:00 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Things like we talked about the other night - food, shelter, healthcare are immediate physical needs that every human being requires. We consider someone poor when their accessability to these needs is diminished. Our action of love (yes, love is an action word more than it is a noun), which is the sum of all the commandments in scripture, should move us in compassion to meet those needs of others. I think the Good Samaritan story takes place in all of our lives everyday. Everyday we walk past hundreds of people whose accessability to those required human needs has been diminished. What if we all stopped and offered out of the abundance of our accessability? I've heard the statistic thrown out there that if just the Christians of the world would sell their wedding rings...the money from them would end hunger in the world. While possibly true, the point is that it would only take simple, seemingly small actions on the part of an individual to make a difference in the world.
I just finished reading the book "Lost Boy No More," an amazing true story of the survival and salvation of Abraham Nhial, one of approximately 35,000 young boys who escaped the civil war and genocide in Sudan. While heart-breaking in many parts, this book was a stark reminder of how comfortably we sit here at home while other Christians continue to suffer and die for their faith and/or race. Often it takes putting a "face" to a story for it to really become important to us, and to my shame I know that I have overlooked stories like these for years simply because they did not impact me. Now that we have adopted our son and he shares the heritage of Sudan, and we believe specifically of the Dinka tribe, I realize that he could easily have been one of those orphaned, maimed, or starving children if God had not sovereignly intervened in his birthmother's life by bringing her to the United States to escape persecution.
Abraham Nhial is a member of an organization called the Aid Sudan Foundation which is currently organizing missions trips for groups of Lost Boys and American Christians to spend two weeks in Sudan for the purpose of sharing the gospel and providing basic needs to the people in southern Sudan. Their website is http://www.aidsudan.org and along the lines of this topic, is well worth visiting and considering!
James 1:27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
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