There are some people you'd never believe even if you met them. One man wakes up three hours early before his office job every morning and serves breakfast to the homeless in the city. A woman and her family give up several bedrooms in their home to those looking for a warm bed, nice food, and some loving company. A man forfeits a relished job and an amazing paycheck to rent out a dumped-on food joint so he can just spend time getting to know other people and hopefully tell through a developing friendship the story of God and his love for us.
These aren't the people you meet on the streets. They're different, somehow, from most of society. They love the unlovables, touch the untouchables, embrace the social rejects and social pariahs of our day. They enter the modern-day leper colonies and love with a passion unlike anything the world has seen before. These people make heads turn. They're hard to find, but you bump into one every once in a while.
One man asked such a person, "Why is it you do what you do? Opening your house to strangers? That's dangerous. Serving breakfast every morning at 5:00! How could you get up that early?" The answer given was this: "If we aren't willing to die to ourselves every morning when we wake up, maybe we ought to question whether or not we are really following Jesus."
Jesus tells the disciples, "Self-help is no help at all." Worrying about yourself, your comfort, your own interests, thinking ME, ME, ME, ME and ME all the time isn't going to do you or anyone else any good. "Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self." Sacrificing your time, your comfort, your energies, your interests, your sleep - this is the way of God.
Our selflessness and obedient sacrifice reveals to us who we are: it brings out our God-colors and our God-flavors, brings out the salt and light that we are when we follow Jesus. It reveals our true identity: patriots of God, followers of the Messiah, sons and daughters of the Creator of the Universe.
These aren't the people you meet on the streets. They're different, somehow, from most of society. They love the unlovables, touch the untouchables, embrace the social rejects and social pariahs of our day. They enter the modern-day leper colonies and love with a passion unlike anything the world has seen before. These people make heads turn. They're hard to find, but you bump into one every once in a while.
One man asked such a person, "Why is it you do what you do? Opening your house to strangers? That's dangerous. Serving breakfast every morning at 5:00! How could you get up that early?" The answer given was this: "If we aren't willing to die to ourselves every morning when we wake up, maybe we ought to question whether or not we are really following Jesus."
Jesus tells the disciples, "Self-help is no help at all." Worrying about yourself, your comfort, your own interests, thinking ME, ME, ME, ME and ME all the time isn't going to do you or anyone else any good. "Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self." Sacrificing your time, your comfort, your energies, your interests, your sleep - this is the way of God.
Our selflessness and obedient sacrifice reveals to us who we are: it brings out our God-colors and our God-flavors, brings out the salt and light that we are when we follow Jesus. It reveals our true identity: patriots of God, followers of the Messiah, sons and daughters of the Creator of the Universe.
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