How Did Jesus Show Love?
Hey Friends,
How did Jesus show His love for the people around Him while He was here on Earth, and for us now? Good questions, don’t you think? So, you get 2 answers and here are mine:
1. He took care of their needs. First, He fed them. Jesus was always there to care for the people at the point of their needs. After you feed a hungry person or clothe a person that is cold, they are much more open to the message of the gospel. He also healed their physical issues. We tend today to limit our ministries solely to the spiritual. That is paramount. Please don’t hear me discount it, but we must also take care of the physical part. The spiritual is more open when the physical is taken care of.
2. He died for us. If I ever wonder about God’s love for me I have only to look to the cross. John 19 portrays the love of God for us without question. His passion was us. The cross was for us.
So the question on the table is, what are we to do about it? As for me and my house we are going to spend or invest our lives serving God and people. We don’t care if they are rich or poor, black or white, educated or uneducated. We are to give our lives away by serving. As we serve the least of these, we serve Jesus.
As Christ-followers we are to emulate His life, aren’t we? So we give ourselves on the altar of caring for people. When and where is your spot? We have a place for you to serve as we try to learn to deal in social justice.
Just another thought – how do you see it?
Pastor
10 Comments
As I read your blog this morning, Pastor, I am awed and humbled beyond belief, for the umpteenth time, that the Lord of the universe came to earth and served the destitute, lost and hungry (literally and figuratively) souls. He suffered the most humilating of lives, and death, to bring in hell-bound sinners to the Kingdom. In our own humble way, we are to do the same. It should grieve all Christ-followers to constant action just to think about it. We have become all too complacent a lot of the time, sitting back and merely giving it lip service. So many of us could, and should, do so much more. I pray for the Spirit of the living God to move in us all even more as we seek to do more of His work before time is up. There is so much need, and we have so much, well, you know what that means—get up and serve!! Think about it, we never do as much as we possibly could, lost and hungry people are miserably waiting, for us to step up to the job….
Pastor, Compassion and serving are near and dear to my heart- I felt the call from a young age- I got my Bachelors in Social Work and planning on starting my Masters next year. But as much as I have thought about the topic, I’ve never made the connection that you made in saying that Jesus cared for physical needs before spiritual. What a great insight! One way we could see this also is that there are many elements to a person- work, relationships, physical/health, spiritual, etc. As the body of Christ, it would behoove us to care for people in a holistic manner, realizing that the more each part of their lives take shape, the more they will be open to hearing the gospel and accepting it.
As for yesterday’s blog about liberal compassion…my observation is that the world is growing weary of lipservice to a compassionate Savior, a God who heals and saves, while many Christians are sitting comfortably from their church pews pointing their fingers in condemnation at all the “sinners.” Our words don’t match our actions. Our words don’t match the Savior’s example of His life on earth. If we are to make headway in saving a lost world, we’ve got to stop the dissonance between preaching love while judging. The world can’t hear a thing we say when our actions are screaming so loud!
One of my previous pastors discussed meeting people’s needs, both physical and spiritual. He noted that a lot of times we’ll toss out “I’ll pray for you” as a crutch. We may mean to pray, and follow up on that. And God hears those prayers. But prayer doesn’t cover up the hunger or cold right now. Often, those folks in need are in need of something right now. Like you said, pastor, Jesus took care of the physical and spiritual. I know as a Christian, I need to do more to help others in helping physical needs, too.
Just have to comment again….how true you are, Katie! I also did not think in quite the perspective that Pastor phrased it in. Wonderful, and very truthful insight on many of the churches these days–what is it Pastor said once, something along the lines of the most hurtful people he had ever met were “church people,” and I have to agree. We need to put our feet where our faith is.
Way to steal to of the best ones! lol
My two:
WHILE HE WAS HERE ON EARTH:
1. He hung out with people who were outcasts…lepers, tax collectors, non-Jews, prostitutes…im sure the list goes on.
WHAT HE DOES NOW:
2. If I get close to Him…He gets close to me. James 4:8 prob my fav verse. -I think He shows love in waiting for us to draw near to Him so that He can come closer to us. (may be the wrong answer for this question…)
2 Answers….
1 Provision, likened unto the Jn.6 kind. One of the things that I took note upon while studying here was Jesus taught them not to send the needy away in three different ways. The first was talking to Philip to “prove” him…faith: that God is all sufficient; or as Pastor said, “God pays for what He orders.” The second was the “place” of and the miracle itself. It had meaning in trust and rest if we learn as He speaks…Ps. 23 and SS 1:7. And of course the physical nourishment again exemplifies our all sufficient God to provide for those who seek Him, so in essence He took care of both practical need and spiritual at the same time. Which brings us to the third, with very real implications for the students of Christ today. We must trust and accept and do the changes He fills us with, in order to give out what the world needs…Him. Who are we to shrink back and disqualify ourselves to not serve mankind when He has given us the provision to do so. Explaining, in vs.12 He says,”Gather up the fragments that remain, that NOTHING be lost.” Vs.13 says they gathered and filled twelve baskets of the barley loaves which remained over and above unto them that had eaten. There were twelve students, disciples who would later be apostles…remember His prayer in Jn. 17:6-26. Jn.6:26-40, we do not seek Him truly for the miracles but mostly for His provision.
2.Admonishing exhortation is to me the most beautiful expression of God’s Love because it signifies His investment in my upbringing and says to me that I belong to Him and that He cares for me as His child. A perfect example is Mk. 9:33-50. He teaches us to forsake pride of place and pour out without being of mind to consider the “value” of others as a prerequisite to our attention going further to say if we offend a little one its better a millstone be tied around our neck and thrown into the sea!!! What we reach for or were we go if it be in or offensive cut it off, and moreover still our eyes. I do not want to covet Anything, because I belive this covers that;especially for the worthlessness of PRIDE. Ending with: For every one shall be salted with fire, and every SACRIFICE shall be salted with salt. Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltiness, wherewith will ye season it? HAVE SALT IN YOURSELVES, AND HAVE PEACE WITH ONE ANOTHER. (EMPHASIS ADDED)
I think it matters greatly to God, in what compells us to serve and how or I should say with what measure. Do we love as much as we would like to convince ourselves we do and have we seen His provision and thereby BELIEVE in our attitudes, teachable spirits, and the worth He gives all whom are His? To serve effectively, we can not carelessly leave the bread of life in the grass on the hill…It is His body broken for us. Argue amongst ourselves about position. Or ignore His instruction especially when it comes to offense.
Focusing on the physical issues……brings three things to mind:
1) Physical healing through the divine supernatural power of God…How do we tap into the power of the Holy Spirit and the power of redemption to administer physical supernatural healing to those in need? At what point did God decide he was no longer interested in this being an attribute of His church? Unless we assume that He did change his mind, then what do we need to do differently to experience this?
2) Physical healing through modern medicine and technology…are we truly being the church if we aren’t using the resources, talents, skills, and gifts that God has given us to serve those in need, including the physically sick and ill? How can the local church collaborate with healthcare providers and organizations to help heal the sick?
3) Physical healing through preventive medicine…Why is the church filled with individuals who are overweight, eat horribly, do not exercise, and take poor care of their bodies, but yet can quote scripture about heaven and hell? Are we only a spirit with no body or mind. Are we only to train our spirits or do we not have a responsibility to train our minds and our bodies as well? How can the local church begin to educate, empower, and help hold accountable its members to a higher standard of physical health than what it accepts today? How much more could you do for God and His Kingdom if you had more energy, less health problems, and more stamina?
Clay… It is about the journey not how good you look getting there. What you stated is important, but not so much as the heart condition of the Church and the Body. What was Jesus’s greatest command? Could we not summarize all parables into one? Did they deal with the outer looks of a person or the inner? Yes there is room for improvement in everyone, do not let looks fool you. And I would be bold enough to say never judge another by there looks. A wise man told me many times, “Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is struggling with some kind of burden”
Pastor is absolutely correct in this blog, so much in fact he did not leave much room for conversation.
1) He spoke the Word wherever He went. When He was tempted in the wilderness He spoke the Word to Satan. When questioned He spoke the Word over every situation that was brought to Him. He knew the power in the Word and used it in every situation. If more of us stopped quoting and started living the example that passion would catch on like wild fire. That is the same passion that has attracted me to different teachings over time. There is no amount of philosophical teachings that speak to my soul the way the Word of God does.
2) He was and is prophecy fulfilled. From the birth to the death he fulfilled that law that we can not by our own works do. I struggeld with this a bit a few weeks back with the example of Lazarus’s death that was used as a reason to how God would use negative circumstance to build our faith. I still do not agree with the concept at all however in my frustration I have chosen to dig deeper into my faith walk and what I found was. Lazarus was the precursor to Jesus’s own death. That the Jews believed that the spirit hung around for three days after death and had been dismissing His works to that point. Naysayers they were. Back to the point. We know that the New Testament is a type and a shadow of the Old. I believe that Jesus was glad that Lazarus was dead because He knew what was next. I mean it was/is His plan. To summarize only He could fulfill the law and bridged that gap back for us that man messed up so long ago after Lazarus was resurrected. Why because Jesus totally messed up there thinking. They knew He was who He said He was and there was no denying it at this point. They had a problem on there hands. As people in positional power sometimes find they do, they had a choice, accept Him or get rid of Him. Unfortunately (for them) as is with many leaderships they chose to kill him. They lost, the rest of the world gained.
1. He loved people right where they were, just like they were.
2. He suffered for us – beyond anything I can imagine. I often wonder if he would have died if he had not chosen to since “the wages of sin is death” and “he knew no sin”. They could not kill him, yet he chose to die for us!
Praise the Lord, another great day of comments. I wish the hundreds that are reading the blog would comment like you guys. thanks alot they are awesome.