Love: is the highest choice for you, your neighbor and God. This choice is void of emotion.
As I was traveling today, transfer here, layover there, grabbing my last cup of Starbucks, deciding which movies to watch, chicken or beef?, a thought hit me at the end of my travels. Now since I’m writing, I did get back to South Africa safely and for the most part there were no hitches, other than the landing in Dakar, Senegal. There was some heavy fog and I ‘ve had some rough landing experiences at African airports, other than South Africa. The thought was this….ending poverty and our (meaning every follower of Jesus) involvement in this cause. I first thought, this life of sacrifice and death is not for a person or people, accolades or awards. We work with orphans and vulnerable children but our work is not for them. The reason is one, which involves the process of becoming free from the expectations and value systems that rule the kingdom of the world. Our reason is found in a man, it’s solely for Jesus. We all see it in the media everywhere. We at 10KHome see it on the ground everyday, that poverty is linked to so many sins…HIV/Aids (the killing of a generation), crime, war, hatred, greed, lust, etc. Jesus has called us to end poverty by giving our extra jacket to the one that doesn’t have one. By sacrificing our time and energy to tutor kids that don’t have parents or parents that won’t or can’t help them with their school work…Charity is wrong because it’s not the most loving thing for the marginalized and poor. Actually it’s the exact opposite to the most loving thing. Charity is a cold, distant arm that says the answer is money. How can an inanimate object solve the problems of animate beings?…Love has to be the answer. The reason why we are called to end poverty is because it’s one of the greatest examples of love. Jesus said “love covers a multitude of sins.” Imagine our crime rates dropping to such a degree that the United State’s jail systems begin to close. Imagine churches beginning to find life and renewal in the process of helping to eradicate poverty, by simply reaching out to the poor and needy. In the eyes of the poor and needy, they see Jesus and there it is, revival.
Too often I’ve heard that when a church leaves a community, the community isn’t devastated by this loss of Christ’s love in the everyday, but it’s a relief that the noisy, selfish group has left. Can we imagine healing taking place within relationships across races, across gender, siblings, sons and fathers, daughters and mothers, across your own family wounds. I’ve seen, year after year, wounds of ministry, wounds of confusion, cultural differences, age differences, all thing unintentional, hurtful actions and words that were intentional being wiped away to an eventual spotless, clean…and then we dance the night away. Lets imagine a movement, where the church can’t accommodate Sunday service because the actual building cannot fit everyone that want to be a part of a body of people given the power that defies all evil and reverses the destruction of selfishness and sin. Imagine the promises of the bible coming true in your life at home, at work, at school…salvation, the redemption of a life, to witness these daily occurrences happening before your eyes…where the yoke we carry becomes lighter…it actually becomes a joy to carry.
Love at first is not easy, but it is simple and very direct.
2 comments:
very cool.
very nice! hahahahaha
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