Love Works
The life of charity and care for the poor is vital to the Christian’s vocation. One can no more separate one’s faith from one's actions towards those broken by want, illness, addiction, and violence than one can separate the heart from the body and still live. It is impossible.
The care of the poor may gain an opening for further communication of the Gospel, but that is because care for the poor is a proclamation of the Gospel, a visible witness to the reality of God's love in Christ who for our sake became poor that we through his poverty might be made rich (2 Cor 9). We serve Christ directly when we care for those who are needy (Matthew 25).
Like the sacrament of the Table, such visible love proclaims the reality of Christ and his love. Indeed, our view of the reality of Christ's body received in the sacrament of the Supper reinforces how we see Christ himself in the body - in the lives of those among us in prison, in want, sick, wounded, and distressed. The world's pain must be met not only by our prayers and preaching but also by our actions of love, which also offer Christ to all.
Does your church boast in its worship and liturgy? Do not forget that the word 'leitourgia' is used not only for worship but also for the collection to care for the needy, hungry, and broken (2 Corinthians 9). We cannot separate our claimed love for God from the reality of loving one's neighbor.
Tertullian was surely right when drawing on an ancient Roman custom, he preached that charity was the brand - the slave mark - on the Christian that identified him as belonging to the true Master, Jesus Christ.
If we are his, we will love, not in word only but in deed. And by this love, the world will see the reality of Christ and his saving work.
This is another reason I thank God for the Deacons at Spanish River. These dear brothers and those who assist them have helped so many of our members and thousands more across our city, sharing the Gospel in word and deed. Every family they visit is offered the Gospel, and every effort is made to assist with substantial, practical relief and aid. Please keep them in your prayers.
May their faithful work and witness inspire such service in us all each day. This is part of the calling of every Christian. To be a disciple is to know that we were all slaves in need of liberation, the estranged in need of reconciliation, the guilty in need of justification, and the hungry, thirsty poor upon whom God has shown his mercy. May we all then freely give as we’ve freely received.