Life or Death? What Do Your Actions Show?

Nice people, who are attractive and agreeable, they are easy to love, especially if they don’t have any needs. But those difficult, unattractive, ornery people, can you still love them? What about a total stranger who has come with some desperate needs?

In Luke 10, Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. It begins with a questioning lawyer coming to trick Jesus. Here’s the story as Jesus told it:
Luke 10:29-37
“29 But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 Then Jesus answered and said: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side. 33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.’ 36 So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?”
37 And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

The world turns a blind eye to suffering. Too often the church does too, but we are the church. Would you have walked on by?

I quoted from Tony Campolo in an earlier post. Tony headed a small evangelical mission that planned and built a small orphanage in a third world country. The orphanage was designed to hold 50 mal-nourished kids. And when it became time to open, they sent out a bus to a local neighborhood, an urban slum, to round up the kids. But instead of 50, they found over 200 starving kids waiting with bloated bellies, toothpick limbs, the red tint to the hair from lack of protein.

It was an agonizing task to sort out the kids, deciding who would live and who would die. The local native pastor who had brought the kids organized the ones being left behind and had them sing a thank you for rescuing the fifty. They sang the chorus, “God is So Good.”

Tony Compola wrote of that, “I didn’t want to hear it. God can’t be good to them.”

But they kept singing: “He loves us so,” and Tony wanted to cry out, “Stop! It isn’t true! God isn’t good to them, He doesn’t love them. If He did, He would have some kind of plan to rescue them.”

Then, he said, it dawned on him; God did have a plan. The plan was to use people like you and me. He concluded, these kids weren’t suffering because God didn’t love them, they were suffering because Christians just didn’t care – at least not enough to do something about it.

Oh, I’m not trying to lay a guilt trip on you. There are many examples of love and kindness among you. Yet, the bulk of the modern church is neither hot nor cold; but tepid, comfortable, complacent. And that’s a dangerous place to be.

This is what Jesus said to the lukewarm church at Laodicea: Revelation 3:16 – “So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.”

Most people think religion is something that happens in a building on Sunday morning one day per week where no attendance is required and the cover charge is whatever change you might have in your pocket at the time; rather than what happens when we offer a cup of cold water in God’s name. Yet, millions of supposed members are not involved in any ministry. None at all. And worse, they don’t think it strange.

But the essence of Christianity is this: James 1:27 – “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”

The essence is simply this: It is giving ourselves without reservation to Jesus Who incarnates Himself in the suffering of people around us. Do you?

Here’s an interesting statistic: America has 10 million pet dogs 73% of which are over-weight, yet a scant portion of believers ever tithe to any ministry. Churches have built over $200 billion in church buildings to be used a few hours per week, mainly to be used by those who gave the money, and all to honor the God who said, “I dwell not in temples made with hands.”

Now, there is nothing wrong with having a nice building to worship in, but the real emphasis has to be on ministry - on people and their needs. Are you serving Christ by serving others?

As we close, I want you to look again at what Jesus said in John 13:35 – “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” But the issue is a lot deeper than whether or not the world thinks we are Christian. The issue is whether or not we are real. 1st John 3:14 warned us: “He who does not love his brother abides in death.”

This is a life and death issue. Do you have life; do you really have eternal life? If your answer is, yes, can it be proven by your ministry to the hurting? Or do your actions prove you are abiding in death?