Friday, February 12

A man I know just recently returned from Haiti. He was there for almost two weeks working with a team to establish a few basic medical clinics in the more remote regions. He told me that the very first morning they arrived in the region, before they had even begun to set up the clinic, dozens of people began crowding around begging for medical attention. He told me that the sheer volume of people in need was completely overwhelming.

Clearly the people of Haiti need all of the prayer and support we can give them. But you don’t have to go all the way to Haiti to feel overwhelmed by the amount of physical and spiritual needs in the world.

Have you ever felt this way – a little overwhelmed at the magnitude of the needs out there and a more than a little inadequate to meet them all? The Biblical concept for this feeling is “dependence”. Totally dependent on God…this is a good place to be!

The people God calls us to serve have all kinds of needs – physical, emotional, relational, financial – but at rock bottom their greatest need is to be rightly related to God! Of course this doesn’t mean that the Word of God and prayer will pay all their debts or feed their stomachs.

Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if not accompanied by action, is dead. James 2:15-17

We must do what we can to help put food on the table, but unless we help people to know the love of God through Jesus Christ, whatever help we do give will only be temporary, a quick fix in light of eternity. This is one of the major differences between genuine Christian service and mere humanitarian benevolence. Both can put food on the table and shoes on the feet, but only the Gospel of Jesus Christ can put grace in the human heart!

After all, if all God wanted was to get the work done, He could send an army of angels, and they could do it better and faster. But God not only wants to do something through us, he also wants to do something in us.

When you serve, God is both using you to meet other s needs and He is working on changing you as well!

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 2 Corinthians 9:8

Jeff Frazier