The Face of Love (Part 1)
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:7 KJV
A compilation June 21, 2016
Life is not fair. Job understood this when he said, “Man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble.”1 In a country that is as rich as ours, millions of people go to bed hungry every night. That is, if they are lucky enough to have a bed or a home, for that matter. The amazing thing is, many people blame God for the misfortunes of humanity.
On a very cold, winter’s day, a young girl stood on a busy street corner begging for food, money, or whatever she could get. She stood there cold and shivering as vicious winds penetrated her thin, tattered clothes. Hundreds of people walked past her but only a few dared to look in her direction. A well-dressed, prosperous looking gentleman looked at the young girl and shook his head before getting into his expensive automobile. When he arrived at his huge, warm, luxurious home, he sat down at the dinner table with his family and began to feast on a meal that was fit for a king.
After eating his dessert, his mind went back to the hungry little girl that he had seen earlier. As he thought about her thin, dirty, shivering body, he started questioning God for allowing such conditions to exist. He said, “God, how can you let this happen? Why don’t you do something to help that little girl?” He heard God responding to his question with the words, “I did. I created you.”
God blesses us so that we can bless others. But instead, too many people have subscribed to the philosophy, “I got mine. You get yours.” They don’t care if you have enough food as long as their refrigerator is full. They don’t care if gangs terrorize your neighborhood as long as their community is safe. They don’t care if you have health care as long as their family is insured. There are a lot of problems in this world. But God has already done what He needs to do to solve them. He created you.—Burton Barr Jr.
Who is my neighbor?
“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” Jesus said. “Who is my neighbor?” they asked Him. And with the story of the good Samaritan, He tried to show them that it is anyone who needs our help, regardless of their race, creed, color, nationality, or condition.2
The good Samaritan is a wonderful story about the poor guy that got beat up along the road by thieves, and the good Samaritan picked him up and took him to the inn and told the innkeeper, “Whatever you spend, I will repay you.” Who was the good Samaritan like? The Good Samaritan was like the Lord, and the innkeeper is his steward, like you or me. And whatever we spend to rescue people and save souls, He will more than repay!
“Whatever thou spendest,” He says, “I will repay.” No matter how much we sacrifice, I will say with the great pioneer missionary, dear Dr. David Livingstone, that “you cannot outgive God.” He said, “I never made a sacrifice! No matter how much I gave, God always gave me back more.”
So I think you’re going to find out you haven’t really sacrificed at all in giving to others. You’ve invested, and the returns are going to be far beyond anything you have invested. The greatest investment we have to make, of course, is ourselves, our lives and our time for others.
I believe God is going to bless every sacrifice we make, not only eternally with the souls of those we lead to Him, but He’s also going to bless us every other way in the bargain. We may temporarily look like we’re losing something or sacrificing a little, but look at later!
So we never lose by giving; we only benefit. “He that withholdeth, it tendeth to poverty, but he that scattereth abroad, it increaseth.”3
1 Job 14:1.
2 Luke 10:29–37.
3 Proverbs 11:24.
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