About Those In Need-DD 10/13/2010

"Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?" James 2:5

Have you ever been in traffic and seen one of those unforunate people who are situated at an intersecection with a sign asking for assistance and wishing you God's blessing? What do you think about such people? Some, I'm sure, think about how sad it is. Others wonder if it is all a scam and if they have a nice car parked around the corner somewhere. Still others have blinders on and have conditioned themselves to not notice such people.

I'm reminded of "the poor, the maimed and the halt" who were the eventual invitees to the King's banquet when the "haves" of the world were too consumed with their riches and their attendant blessings to accept His invitation. I'm also reminded of a rich man who dressed in finery and ate well each day while another lay at his gates begging crumbs, experiencing compassion only from dogs that licked his sores. At the end of life, it was the poor man who found riches and the rich who found poverty.

Beloved, there are two lessons we should learn from these references and from that which life shows us daily. First, there, but for the grace of God go any of us. Particularly in this day and age of recession, a down economy, forcloseures and the like, we could find oursleves out of work and threatened with losing our homes. In that we are constantly asking ourselves what Jesus would do, we should stop asking and actually do what he would do. None of us will miss the dollar we give to a person in need. Never mind their motives or true situation. That is between them and God. Our helping another person (or failure to do so) is between us and God.

Second, let us not be so consumed with the blessings from God in this world that we lose sight of the Provider Himself and the even greater blessings available in the next. Focusing on adjusting the onboard entertainment in our vehicles that cause us to miss a person in need can just as easily and just as surely cause us to miss heaven. If we are too distracted to do the work of God, we are too distracted. We are the reason the righteous should never be forsaken nor their seed begging bread.

In Revival,

Lee