...for it is written, be holy for I am holy. (1 Peter 1:16)
David Platt showed up as a missionary to gather support for his passion when he found himself at The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama. Despite never seeing himself as a senior pastor, he found a congregation asking him to lead their church at the ripe age of 28.
He accepted, but only with a few conditions. What he didn't want was another brick-and-mortar cathedral or a center for celebration on Sunday that looked indistinguishable from the rest of society Monday-Saturday. Half the budget was to begin going to missions. The church was to set a goal that not a single child should still be in the foster system. Suddenly, the problems in the community and around the world became their problems and they were joyful to have them.
How different would a church like this look in our community? I spoke with a local church member in Caroline and mentioned how it bothered me that we were so isolated from a lot of the needs we see in different areas of the county. As a "come-here", our lack of involvement with these different groups was troublesome. This individual said something to the effect of, "I hear what you're saying, and that's nice that you want to help those people, but a lot of the people in bad areas of our county are there because they made bad life decisions and anything we'll do will probably just enable them to make more bad decisions."
All I could think to say in response was, "You know, I am thankful that Christ didn't look at my life before getting on that cross and say, 'I'll die for almost everyone, but not for Joseph... he knew better and brought that sin on himself and me dying on the cross for him will probably just enable him to do more sinful things.' "
The calling of someone living for faith is something that may look weird, even to the life-long church member. Shoot, some pastors may not even recognize it if they saw it!
Everyone has heard of the "feeding of the 5,000" where Jesus took 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish then proceeded to feed a massive crowd. These people were largely listening and learning from Jesus. Some people forget about the feeding of the 4,000 that occurs in Matthew 15 after the first mass feeding. If you read the end of Matthew 14 through Matt 15:32, what you see is that many of the people following Christ at the time were only there because he conducted miracles and healings. He did very little teaching as it is recorded in scriptures. They weren't disciples, they weren't going to Bible study, and they weren't "earning" their compassion from Jesus. Jesus simply loved them, had compassion on their needs without qualification or caveat, then after he gave to them supernatural healing he still fed them.
This is the image of charity, love, and compassion that I wish we saw more in the traditional western church. Rather than spending thousands on flowers for special events, new carpets, or a new organ, what if we spent those thousands giving without caveat or qualification? What if... and follow me here... we gave in the same way Christ did: out of a sense of love and desire to help others and not out of a sense of how it would look on our Facebook page? What if the objections we got from other church members wasn't "why should we give to those people" but instead was "why can't we give even more to those people"? What a dream for a pastor to have a congregation so zealous in their love and compassion that the pastor actually had to hold them back to think more pragmatically!
I have cynical feelings on the traditional church, but we are all Christ's church and this Christmas season we, The Church, have an opportunity to connect to that which makes us holy... not our religiosity, but the opportunities we have to be Christ in someone else's life. Maybe we will even have the chance to be that person in the life of someone rejected by others or that might otherwise seem us as an adversary.
"...be holy, for I am holy."
DEVOTIONAL PRAYER
A Prayer for A Passion for Compassion
Loving father, give us more than mere conviction for compassion and a desire to help others; give us a burning desire to bring others joys. Give us a passion to meet the needs for others. Help us to feel that helping others is greater than helping ourselves. We thank you for not considering whether we were “worthy” of your love and compassion when you choose to die on the cross. Please help us to bring our traditional way of thinking about charity as a simple duty of all Christians and as an opportunity to show the same time of love for others as you first showed us. We pray all these things in your name, Amen.
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