Deuteronomy 15, Deuteronomy 16: 1-20, Luke 13: 31-35, Luke 14: 1-14, Psalm 62
Luke 14: 12-14 (ESV)
“He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give
a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your
relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be
repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the
blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be
repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
I love the message that Jesus gave in verses 12 through 14
from Luke 14. Jesus tells us that we shouldn’t just be friends with people who
can do something for us or can repay us. The author of one of my Bible study
states that Jesus does not us to limit ourselves to mixing only with people who
make us feel easy and comfortable. Jesus invites us to mix with people who are
less fortunate than we are and might never be able to repay us for any kindness
we do for them. We will be repaid by God when we die.
I served Thanksgiving meals for the homeless one year, and
it was an eye-opening experience. Many of the people we served did not smell
very good due to lack of bathing and/or from the open sores on their body. It
was hard for me not to have feelings of revulsion instead of compassion for these
unfortunate folks who lived on the streets. Their smiles of gratitude for
having a hot meal made me feel ashamed of my initial reactions to their bodily
odors. After about 15 minutes of serving, I didn’t even notice the smells and starting
feeling an immense sense of gratitude that the Holy Spirit had inspired me to
serve the poor on Thanksgiving. I could see that God was present in all of these
people, and I was planting seeds of Christ by my service to these people by
just serving them on a hot meal on chilly day.
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