Thursday: sharing the love of God with our neighbours
This morning’s devotional thought is from Ian Bryan, helping us to reflect on sharing the love of God with our neighbours.
Focus verse: Amos 5:24 “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.”
For me, God’s word in Amos 5: 24 calls us to love and help the vulnerable members of our society - the poor, the weak, the oppressed - just as Jesus did. Throughout Jesus’ ministry He demonstrated his love for people in many ways, but particularly by His actions and miracles, feeding the 5,000, healing the sick, having compassion for the poor.
One of the key things that attracted me to Kerith originally was how outward looking we are as a church. There are so many different initiatives and groups reaching out and sharing the love of God within our communities, such as Food Bank, Christians Against Poverty (CAP), Food Pantry, Early Intervention, Revive Café, Meet and Brew which form part of our Revive Ministries.
During the past year I have had the privilege of helping at the Food Pantry at Farnborough. During this time, we have seen God’s continual provision of food for our growing community of over 100 members, rather like the ‘never-failing stream’ in Amos, through donations from individuals, church members, charities, supermarkets and even a local care home. It has been humbling to hear some of our members’ stories and to see how appreciative they are, not only for the food that Pantry provides but also for the warm welcome and support they receive from the volunteers. We’ve seen individuals who were openly opposed to the church attend our events with their family, and others come along to our Sunday meetings.
It is early days, but God is clearly moving and blessing this work!
As Christians we are all called by Jesus to love our neighbour. For me, based on Jesus’ ministry, this means by our actions and not just our thoughts and words.
While I’m sure we would all aspire to do this, it can be difficult as so many things distract us and get in the way. Let’s face it, life is busy with lots of demands on our time, trying to balance the pressures of education or work with our family and social lives. Finding time to ‘breathe in’ and spend time with God each day is difficult enough, but making time to ‘breathe out’ God’s love and truth to our neighbour can be really challenging.
Today’s culture doesn’t help either as it tends to focus on the individual, to be inward looking, being all about ‘me’ and ‘my’ needs and desires, getting what we want out of life often at the expense of others. It’s so easy to get caught up in this, and yet as Christians we need to be counter-cultural and look beyond ourselves, sharing the love of God with our neighbours in our thoughts, words and particularly our deeds.
Question for reflection:
There are many ways we can do this, through prayer, sharing our finances, giving our time, a kind word or smile. Perhaps bringing some food items each Sunday for Food Pantry. How will you share God’s love this week?