Offer More than "I Love You"

My son is suffering emotionally, mentally and physically. The emotional and mental issues he’s informed me have been going on since middle school. The physical part has been going on several months now; with blood work, MRI’s, muscle and nerve test and still no answers. He has said he would rather be dead than not know with the mental challenges he’s dealing with. Anxiety. Panic attacks and stress. Missing weeks of work and some days he has to leave. His employer has been very gracious, definitely a gift from God. Our relationship has totally changed. I was able to baptize him two weeks ago and my daughter was baptized at the same time by her husband. A beautiful gift; God is answering prayers. I have been able to come and stay with him several days a week. Cook. Clean. Do his laundry. We Have had great conversations. We have watched many sermons together and we are attending worship as a family. I live two hours away so Being able to come and stay with him has been the and. I’m so Thankful my Father makes a way and provides. Father may your will be done.

My neighbor was having a hard time adjusting to health issues with her father. I told her that I loved her and wanted to make her family homemade chicken noodle soup.

A young man in my community recently bought his 1st house, he's only 23!! He was raised by his grandma, who was very poor and who just passed away. He was a great student all through school, then went on to college to earn a Bachelors degree. He has overcome many obstacles, pretty much by himself. When I found out he bought a home, I wanted to get him a house warming gift. When the church handed out the envelopes , I knew I had to help this fella out. I read other stories where church families turned their envelope money into more money. So I decided to have him a surprise house warming online party. Every gift on the registry was bought. And some of my family members pitched in and bought him a new TV!!! He has been so overwhelmed by the gifts. God is so, so good!! To much is given, much is expected.

I've been the main caregiver for my first grandchild for 11 years now. Lately I've been feeling shortchanged. Having raised three of my own children and having gone through all the challenges as every parent does, I felt like it's my time to be free of all responsibilities. I've done my time and I now deserve to enjoy my freedom. I began resenting this child who loves me and looks to me for love and comfort; but I was failing her terribly. Before Matt's sermon I was saying, "I love you but you're not helping here, or I love but you're making it harder to care for you." These are absolutely NOT what children want to hear. After the sermon, I said, "I love you and I'm not giving up on you. I'm here for the long haul so we're just going to try our best to work together." Nothing has changed much on her end, she's still bratty, but I feel less sorry for myself and that leaves me with the ability to stay the coarse. God help us all.

Movements change cultures and communities forever. Jesus’s ministry was the most powerful movement in all of history. His ministry was made up of hundreds of moments, hundreds of interactions with people, one at a time. 1 Peter 3:8 reminds us: "Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble." Your act of compassion for someone, who needs to be reminded of their value, may only last a moment or two, but its impact could be eternal and even change the trajectory of an entire family. As representatives of Christ and the Church, we need to be searching and looking for the person who needs some love and compassion, when the rest of the world has possibly overlooked or forgotten them. These people might not be the easiest to love. They may be very different than you and it might cost you something that you didn’t expect. But all these moments of the Church combine to create a movement that can transform our communities, culture, and world. This movement is motivated and created by Jesus’s example to love and value the people that come into your path, one at a time. 

The story of Jesus healing the man with leprosy concludes in Mark 1:45. This verse states, “Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.” In the previous verse, Jesus instructed the man to keep the news about his healing to himself and not to tell anyone. But this man just couldn’t hold in his joy and celebration for how Jesus had transformed his life with touch and compassion for his affliction. He shared the story of his miraculous encounter with Jesus with anyone who would listen. Jesus’s compassion and healing of his man cost him his ability to openly go into a town though, due to the crowds of people following and coming to him with requests and needs. These constant crowds forced him into some desolate and remote places, where he hadn’t needed to previously retreat.  Our culture is distraught and overwhelmed with the needs of people for compassion. But compassion will cost you; sometimes in ways that you can’t anticipate. It might cost you financially in ways that you didn’t budget for. It might cost you some time that you didn’t have plugged into your schedule. It might cost you some pride that you have trouble letting go of. Whatever our compassion costs us, Jesus’s example shows us that it’s always worth it. 

In Mark 1:40-44, we read a story of Jesus healing the man with leprosy, who was begging to be made clean. After touching and healing him, verses 43 and 44 tell us that Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” Jesus does this so this man can be declared clean by the local priest and reenter society and community in ways that he wasn’t allowed to when he was afflicted by leprosy. Without this declaration by the priest, his leprosy would be gone, but his social isolation would remain. Jesus knew to truly heal him, this man needed to be able to connect to his family and community.  Connection to others is so important, and we are called to value it as much as Jesus did in this story when we are trying to reach out to the hurting and broken people placed in our paths. When you go out and touch someone, you're connecting them to a community. That's why just giving donations of money or items can be ineffective sometimes. That's crowd behavior; that's anonymous behavior. We want to be able to see them face to face and tell them about a church that loves them and a Lord who loves and honors them. Without making these connections, we’ve merely taken care of a moment, but this is about a movement. It is a movement where we're driving forward the love of Jesus by connecting people.

In Mark 1:40, we read the story of a man with leprosy approaching Jesus with a request to be healed from this ailment. This man’s faith to step out and ask Jesus to heal him was a brave and bold move during this time as it would have been illegal for a leper to approach anyone without leprosy since it was extremely contagious. But this man had to be bold if he wanted healing as there were no other options for him, because, as we see in the Bible, no one was cleansed of leprosy outside the direct intervention of God. So, this man is asking Jesus to do what only God can do, since every other rabbi literally would push lepers like him away. In verse 41, it says, “Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. ‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be clean!’”. The word indignant used to describe Jesus here means he was filled with compassion. And we see that Jesus doesn’t just feel compassion for this man, but he touches the man in order to heal him. Jesus didn’t have to touch him; he could have healed him without this step. That’s why this is so powerful!  When you touch someone, you actually see where Jesus is hiding in our culture. The people who need to be touched the most are oftentimes those that feel the most uncomfortable to approach. Sometimes it's a homeless person downtown. Sometimes it’s a single mom and sometimes it's an ex-con, but when you touch those people, you see Jesus in them for the first time. And that’s life transformation!