The passage that jumped out at me today was the one about Jesus separating the sheep from the goats, separating the true believers from the pretenders and unbelievers, separating the saved from the lost.
And what separates them?
In his book, Outlive Your Life, Max Lucado says...
The sign of the saved is their concern for those in need. Compassion does not save them - or us. Salvation is the work of Christ. Compassion is the consequence of salvation.....
As Chrysostom pointed out, "We do not hear, 'I was sick and you healed me,' or 'I was in prison and you liberated me.'" The works of mercy are simple deeds. And yet in these simple deeds, we serve Jesus. Astounding, this truth: we serve Christ by serving needy people....
None of us can help everyone. But all of us can help someone. And when we help them, we serve Jesus. Who would want to miss a chance to do that? (emphasis in bold mine)
V40 seems to indicate that these are acts of compassion to fellow believers. And, indeed, there are many passages that reinforce this.
In his sermon Doing Mercy to the Brothers of Jesus and the Broken Neighbour, John Piper says...
When Jesus says in Matthew 25:40 that doing ministries of mercy to the least, namely, his brothers, is doing them to him, he means, doing them to his disciples is doing them to him.
We see the very same teaching in Mathew 10:42, “Whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.” In other words, Jesus says that true Christians do ministries of mercy to Christians because they are Christians. And that’s one of the main ways that your Christianity is shown to be real—which is why heaven and hell hang on it.
James explains how this fits with faith as the way of salvation: James 2:15-17 “If a brother or sister [a disciple!] is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what goodis that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” If we don’t ever bear the fruit of practical love toward brothers and sisters—the least of them—our faith is dead and we are not saved. That’s Jesus’ point.....
Does that mean then, that unbelievers should not get our mercy? No. In fact Jesus was very strong on this matter. He said that if we only love those who love us, if we only do good to those who do good to us, we are no different than unbelievers. So yes, show mercy to your brothers and sisters when they suffer. This is what true families do. But if you only love your family, if you only sacrifice to relieve the suffering of your family, you are no better than an unbeliever. (see Luke 6:27-36)
But, just like the parable Jesus used to answer the "Who is my neighbour?" question, the emphasis is not on who we are to serve, but on the fact that we are to serve!
And, as my Life Application Bible points out...
This parable describes acts of mercy we all can do every day. These acts do not depend on wealth, ability, or intelligence; they are simple acts freely given and freely received. We have no excuse to neglect those who have deep needs, and we canot hand over this responsibility to the church or government. Jesus demands our personal involvement in caring for others' needs (Isaiah 58:7).
Are we bearing fruit of our salvation?
Tomorrow's passage: Mark 14:1-2, 10-26, Matthew 26:1-5, 14-30, Luke 22:1-30, John 13:1-30
2 comments:
I find myself often thinking of the poor and needy as those who are homeless, for example, or in terms of helping at a shelter or something, instead of looking for opportunities to serve those in my immediate surroundings including those in my church who maybe are not physically poor or needy but may have other needs with which I can help. Thanks for the reminder!
Really, in a sense, we are all poor and/or afflicted. Maybe most often, not in the physical sense, but almost all of us struggle from time to time with fears, frustrations, disappointments, seemingly unanswered prayers...
One thing I've been asking God for the last few months is to make me more sensitive to the needs in others that I can't SEE and to be willing to minister to those in some way.
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