CHAPTER 9: DO GOOD, QUIETLY
"Ananias his wife, Sapphira, conniving in this with him-sold a piece of land, secretly kept part of the price for himself, and then brought the rest to the apostles and made an offering of it"—Acts 5:1-2 (MSG).
1. “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out” (v. 9). Ananias and Sapphira deserved punishment, for sure. They deserved a stiff sentence. But the death sentence? Does the punishment fit the crime? What they did was bad, but was it that bad? Let’s think about it. Exactly what did they do? They used the church for self-promotion. They leveraged God’s family for personal gain. They attempted to turn a congregation into a personal stage across which they could strut. God has a strong word for such behavior: hypocrisy.
"All their works they do to be seen by men... They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, “Rabbi, Rabbi”. . . But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men . . . Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers . . . You cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. (Matt. 23:5–7, 13–14, 25).
2. Jesus never spoke to anyone else with such intensity. But when He saw the religious hypocrite, He flipped on the spotlight and exposed every self-righteous mole and pimple. “They love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men” (Matt. 6:5). This is the working definition of hypocrisy: “to be seen by men”. The Greek word for hypocrite, hupokrites, originally meant “actor”. First-century actors wore masks. A hypocrite, then, is one who puts on a mask, a false face.
3. Jesus did not say, “Do not do good works”. Nor did He instruct, “Do not let your works be seen”. We must do good works, and some works, such as benevolence or teaching, must be seen in order to have an impact. So let’s be clear. To do a good thing is a good thing. To do good to be seen is not. In fact, to do good to be seen is a serious offense. Here’s why. Hypocrisy turns people away from God. When God-hungry souls walk into a congregation of wannabe superstars, what happens? When people enter a church to see God yet can’t see God because of the church, don’t think for a second that God doesn’t react. “Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding” (Matt. 6:1 MSG).
4. Hypocrisy turns people against God. So God has a no-tolerance policy. Let the cold, lifeless bodies of the embezzling couple issue their intended warning. Let’s take hypocrisy as seriously as God does. How can we?
• Expect no credit for good deeds. None. If no one notices, you aren’t disappointed. If someone does, you give the credit to God. Ask yourself this question: “If no one knew of the good I do, would I still do it?” If not, you’re doing it to be seen by people.
• Give financial gifts in secret. Money stirs the phony within us. We like to be seen earning it. And we like to be seen giving it. So “when you give to someone in need, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” (Matt. 6:3 NLT).
• Don’t fake spirituality. When you go to church, don’t select a seat just to be seen or sing just to be heard. If you raise your hands in worship, raise holy ones, not showy ones. When you talk, don’t doctor your vocabulary with trendy religious terms. Nothing nauseates more than a fake “Praise the Lord” or a shallow “Hallelujah” or an insincere “Glory be to God”.
5. Bottom line: don’t make a theater production out of your faith. “Watch me! Watch me!” is a call used on the playground, not in God’s kingdom. Silence the trumpets. Cancel the parade. Enough with the name-dropping. If accolades come, politely deflect them before you believe them. Slay the desire to be noticed. Stir the desire to serve God. Heed the counsel of Christ: “First wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too” (Matt. 23:26 NLT). Focus on the inside, and the outside will take care of itself. Lay your motives before God daily, hourly. “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends You, and lead me along the path of everlasting life” (Ps. 139:23–24 NLT).
Do good things. Just don’t do them to be noticed. You can be too good for your own good, you know.
"But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you" (Matt. 6:3–4 NIV).
Lord, you hate hypocrisy, it turns others away from you. Blunt in natural inclination to seek personal recognition for whatever good things You allow me to do. I don t want to be a phony but neither do I want to be a glory hound. Fill me with Your Spirit, and teach me to follow His example in gladly giving all glory to your Son. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
CHAPTER 10: STAND UP FOR THE HAVE-NOTS
"The Greek-speaking widows were not given their share when the food supplies were handed out each day" —Acts 6:1 (CEV).
1. Cut concern for the poor out of the Bible, and you cut the heart out of it. God makes the poor His priority. When the hungry pray, He listens. When orphans cry, He sees. And when the widows in Jerusalem were neglected, He commissioned His best and brightest disciples to help them. Rapid church growth brought needy people, and among the needy people were widows. They had no source of income. When they buried their husbands, they buried their financial security. Government support? Company pension? The Widows Job Corp? Didn’t exist. According to the culture of their day, the extended family provided support. But extended families disowned Christian relatives, leaving the widows of the church with only one place to turn: the church. The congregation responded with a daily distribution of food, clothing, and money.
2. Jesus, in His first message, declared His passion for the poor. Early in His ministry He returned to His hometown of Nazareth to deliver an inaugural address of sorts. He entered the same synagogue where He had worshipped as a young man and looked into the faces of the villagers. They were simple folk: stonecutters, carpenters, and craftsmen. They survived on minimal wages and lived beneath the shadow of Roman oppression. There wasn’t much good news in Nazareth. But this day was special. Jesus was in town. The hometown boy who had made the big time. They asked Him to read Scripture, and he accepted. “And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written . . .” (Luke 4:17).
“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted” (Luke 4:18, quoting Isaiah 61:1).
Jesus had a target audience. The poor. The brokenhearted. Captives. The blind and oppressed. His to-do list? Help for the body and soul, strength for the physical and the spiritual, therapy for the temporal and eternal. “This is my mission statement,” Jesus declared. The Nazareth Manifesto.
3. “Acceptable year of the LORD” describes, perhaps more than any other words, Jesus’ radical commitment to the poor. They are reminiscent of the year of Jubilee, a twice-in-a-century celebration intended to press the restart button on the machinery of justice. Beginning on the Day of Atonement, all the fields were allowed to rest. No farming permitted. The fallow land could recover from forty-nine years of planting and harvesting. In addition, all the slaves were freed. Anyone who had been sold into slavery or who had sold himself into slavery to pay off debt was released. Bondage ended.
4. Couldn’t such people use a bit of Jubilee? Of course they could. So . . .
• First, let the church act on behalf of the poor. The apostles did. “So the Twelve called a meeting of all the believers” (Acts 6:2 NLT). They assembled the entire church. The problem of inequity warranted a churchwide conversation. The leaders wanted every member to know that this church took poverty seriously. The ultimate solution to poverty is found in the compassion of God’s people. Scripture endorses not forced communism but Spirit-led volunteerism among God’s people.
• Second, let the brightest among us direct us. “And so, brothers, select seven men who are well respected and are full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will give them this responsibility” (v. 3 NLT).
5. Get ticked off. Riled up enough to respond. Righteous anger would do a world of good. Poverty is not the lack of charity but the lack of justice. Again, no one can do everything, but everyone can do something. Some people can fast and pray about social sin. Others can study and speak out. What about you? Get out of your comfort zone for Christ’s sake. Why not teach an inner-city Bible study? Use your vacation to build houses in hurricane-ravaged towns? Run for public office? Help a farmer get an ox?
"Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you" (James 1:27 NLT).
Dear Lord, You promised we would always have the poor among us. Help me to make sure that the reverse is also true: that I am always among the poor helping, encouraging, and lending a hand wherever I can. Enable me to love the invisible God by serving the very visible poor in my corner of the world. Help me to be creative without being condescending, encouraging without being egotistic, and fearless without being foolish. May the poor bless You because of me, and may my efforts somehow reduce the number of the poor. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
CHAPTER 11: REMEMBER WHO HOLDS YOU
"Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool. What house will you build for Me?says the Lord, or what is the place of My rest? Has My hand not made all these things?" —Acts 7:49-50
1. Stephen was one of the seven men tasked to care for the Gentile widows. Luke describes him as “full of faith and power,[who] did great wonders and signs among the people” (Acts 6:8). His ministry, however, provoked antagonism. A sect of jealous enemies falsely accused him of blasphemy. They marched him to the council of the Sanhedrin and demanded that he defend himself. Did he ever! Nor was it a lightweight message. Fifty-two verses that led the listeners from Abraham to Jesus. Two thousand years of Hebrew history resulted in one indictment: “You’re forgetting who holds you”.
When the people forgot God, God pursued the people.
2. Stephen’s message echoed like the pounding of a kettledrum in the assembly hall. Our ancestors forgot who brought us here. They forgot who carried us. They turned away from God, and now you’ve tried to put him in a box!
"Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness . . . until the days of David, who found favor before God and asked to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob. But Solomon built Him a house" (vv. 44–47).
3. These words didn’t settle well with the Sanhedrin. The temple was the pride of the people: huge stones, glittering gold, massive archways, and, most of all, the Holy of Holies—the house of God. Jews kept this bumper sticker on their oxcarts: “Don’t mess with the temple”. Yet Stephen challenged their big heads with a huge point: You’ve forgotten how big God is. So far, no good. You boast about a land you did not conquer, a law you did not follow, and a stone box that wouldn’t encase God’s pinkie finger. Your view of self? Too big. Your view of God? Too small. So small that you missed Him when He came to town.
Take time to remember. “Look at what you were when God called you” (1 Cor. 1:26 NCV). Remember who held you in the beginning. Remember who holds you today.
4. The greatest example of this humility is none other than Jesus Christ. Who had more reason to boast than He? Yet He never did. He walked on water but never strutted on the beach. He turned a basket into a buffet but never demanded applause. A liberator and a prophet came to visit Him, but He never dropped names in Jis sermon. He could have. “Just the other day I was conferring with Moses and Elijah”. But Jesus never thumped His chest. He refused even to take credit. “I can do nothing on My own” (John 5:30 NRSV). He was utterly reliant upon the Father and the Holy Spirit. “All by myself”? Jesus never spoke such words. If He didn’t, how dare we?
5. We can rise too high but can never stoop too low. What gift are you giving that He did not first give? What truth are you teaching that He didn’t first teach? You love. But who loved you first? You serve. But who served the most? What are you doing for God that He could not do alone? How kind of Him to use us. How wise of us to remember. Stephen remembered. And since he remembered Jesus, Jesus remembered him. As Stephen’s accusers reached for their rocks, he looked toward Christ. “Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand” (Acts 7:55 NLT). Stephen stood on behalf of Christ, and in the end, Christ returned the favor.
"What do you have that God hasn’t given you?And if everything you have is from God, why boast as though it were not a gift?" (1 Cor. 4:7 NLT).
My Father, I desire that the attitude of John the Baptist might be my own that Jesus would increase even as I decrease. Give me an ever-larger picture of You so I might see myself with ever-increasing clarity and revel each day in Your amazing grace. Keep foolish pride far from me, and give me the sense to humble myself in healthy ways that bring strength and joy to everyone around me. Remind me constantly. Lord, that You hold my life and breath and eternal future in Your loving hands and that every good thing I have comes from You. Never let me forget that although without You I can do nothing, in Christ I can do all things. The difference is You. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
CHAPTER 12: BLAST A FEW WALLS
"See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?" Then Philip said, "if you believe with all your heart, you may"—Acts 8:36-37
1. Samaria. Peter and John arriving. Holy Spirit falling. Gaza. Ethiopian official. Philip. What do these events teach us? They teach us how God feels about the person on the other side of the wall. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance . . . Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.
"Christ brought us together through His death on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility" (Eph. 2:14–16 MSG).
2. We can’t outlive our lives if we can’t get beyond our biases. Who are your Samaritans? Ethiopian eunuchs? Whom have you been taught to distrust and avoid? It’s time to remove a few bricks. Welcome the day God takes you to your Samaria—not so distant in miles but different in styles, tastes, tongues, and traditions.
3. And if you meet an Ethiopian eunuch, so different yet so sincere, don’t refuse that person. Don’t let class, race, gender, politics, geography, or culture hinder God’s work. For the end of the matter is this: when we cross the field and cheer for the other side, everyone wins.
"Therefore, accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory" (Rom. 15:7 NLT).
Lord, in how many ways docs my foolish heart make false distinctions among Your people. Reveal them to me. How often do I judge someone as unworthy of You by the way I treat him or her. Rebuke me in Your love. Where can I blast a wall or remove a barrier that keeps Your children apart from one another? Give me some dynamite and the skill and courage to use it for Your glory. What can I do in my sphere of influence to bring the love of Christ to someone who may feel ostracized or estranged from You? Lend me divine insight, and bless me with the resolve to be Your hands and feet. May I be a bridge and not a wall. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
CHAPTER 13: DON'T WRITE OFF ANYONE
"Brother Saul the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and He filled with the Holy Spirit"—Acts 9:17
1. Ananias knew what Saul had done to the church in Jerusalem. What he was about to learn, however, is what Jesus had done to Saul on the road to Damascus. Somewhere on this thirsty trail, Jesus knocked Saul to the ground and asked him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” (Acts 9:4). Saul jammed his fists into his eye sockets as if they were filled with sand. He rolled onto his knees and lowered his head down to the earth. “‘Who are You, Lord?’ Then the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting’” (v. 5). When Saul lifted his head to look, the living centers of his eyes had vanished. He was blind. He had the vacant stare of a Roman statue.
2. By the time Ananias arrives, blind Saul has begun to see Jesus in a different light. Ananias enters and sits on the stone floor. He takes the hand of the had-been terrorist and feels it tremble. He observes Saul’s quivering lips. Taking note of the sword and spear resting in the corner, Ananias realizes Christ has already done the work. All that remains is for Ananias to show Saul the next step. “Brother Saul . . .” (How sweet those words must have sounded. Saul surely wept upon hearing them).
God used Paul to touch the world. But he first used Ananias to touch Paul. Has God given you a similar assignment? Has God given you a Saul?
3. Everyone else has written off your Saul. “He’s too far gone”. “She’s too hard . . . too addicted . . . too old . . . too cold”. No one gives your Saul a prayer. But you are beginning to realize that maybe God is at work behind the scenes. Maybe it’s too soon to throw in the towel . . . You begin to believe. Don’t resist these thoughts.
4. Don’t give up on your Saul. When others write him off, give him another chance. Stay strong. Call him brother. Call her sister. Tell your Saul about Jesus, and pray. And remember this: God never sends you where He hasn’t already been. By the time you reach your Saul, who knows what you’ll find.
"I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display His unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on Him and receive eternal life" (1 Tim. 1:16 NIV).
O Lord, nobody lies beyond the grasp of Your grace. Who in my life do I see as hopeless? What man or woman who currently seems far from You do You want to bring into Your family, in part through me? What Saul is out there to whom I could become an Ananias? Father, I pray that You would show Your greatness and Your power by using me in some way to introduce an "unlikely candidate" to Your son. Help me triumph over my fears and obliterate my misconceptions as You work through me to bring someone else, through faith, into the circle of Your love. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
CHAPTER 14: STABLE THE HIGH HORSE
"God has shown me that he doesn’t think anyone is unclean or unfit" —Acts 10.28 (CEV).
1. People are prone to pecking orders. We love the high horse. The boy over the girl or girl over boy. The affluent over the destitute. The educated over the dropout. The old-timer over the newcomer. The Jew over the Gentile. An impassable gulf yawned between Jews and Gentiles in the days of the early church. A Jew could not drink milk drawn by Gentiles or eat their food. Jews could not aid a Gentile mother in her hour of need. Jewish physicians could not attend to non-Jewish patients. No Jew would have anything to do with a Gentile. They were unclean.
2. Unless that Jew, of course, was Jesus. Suspicions of a new order began to surface because of His curious conversation with the Canaanite woman. Her daughter was dying, and her prayer was urgent. Yet her ancestry was Gentile. “I was sent only to help God’s lost sheep—the people of Israel,” Jesus told her. “That’s true, Lord,” she replied, “but even dogs are allowed to eat the scraps that fall beneath their masters’ table” (Matt. 15:24, 27 NLT). Jesus healed the woman’s daughter and made His position clear. He was more concerned about bringing everyone in than shutting certain people out.
This was the tension Peter felt. His culture said, “Keep your distance from Gentiles.” His Christ said, “Build bridges to Gentiles”. And Peter had to make a choice. An encounter with Cornelius forced his decision.
3. Cornelius was an officer in the Roman army. Both Gentile and bad guy. (Think British redcoat in eighteenth-century Boston.) He ate the wrong food, hung with the wrong crowd, and swore allegiance to Caesar. He didn’t quote the Torah or descend from Abraham. Uncircumcised, unkosher, unclean. Look at him. Yet look at him again. Closely. He helped needy people and sympathized with Jewish ethics. He was kind and devout. “One who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the people, and prayed to God always” (Acts 10:2). Cornelius was even on a first-name basis with an angel. The angel told him to get in touch with Peter, who was staying at a friend’s house thirty miles away in the seaside town of Joppa. Cornelius sent three men to find him.
“Behold, three men are seeking you. Arise therefore, go down and go with them, doubting nothing; for I have sent them” (vv. 19–20).
“Doubting nothing” can also be translated “make no distinction” or “indulge in no prejudice” or “discard all partiality.” This was a huge moment for Peter.
4. We are still pondering verse 28: “God has shown me that He doesn’t think anyone is unclean or unfit”. Life is so much easier without this command. As long as we can call people common or unfit, we can plant them on Kalaupapa and go our separate ways. Labels relieve us of responsibility. Pigeonholing permits us to wash our hands and leave. Categorizing others creates. distance and gives us a convenient exit strategy for avoiding involvement. Jesus took an entirely different approach. He was all about including people, not excluding them. “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood” (John 1:14 MSG). Jesus touched lepers and loved foreigners and spent so much time with partygoers that people called Him a “lush, a friend of the riffraff” (Matt. 11:19 MSG).
5. God calls us to change the way we look at people. Not to see them as Gentiles or Jews, insiders or outsiders, liberals or conservatives. Not to label. To label is to libel. “We have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view” (2 Cor. 5:16 NLT). In our lifetimes you and I are going to come across some discarded people. Tossed out. Sometimes tossed out by a church. And we get to choose. Neglect or rescue? Label them or love them? We know Jesus’ choice. Just look at what He did with us.
"You [Jesus] are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because You were slain, and with Your blood You purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation" (Rev. 5:9 NIV).
Father, You have used all types of people for Your holy purposes: prostitutes, murderers, persecutors, liars, thieves, swindlers, the illiterate, the ignorant, the blind, the lame. Grant me the grace to treat everyone I meet as someone for whom Jesus died and rose again. Let there be no unwholesome or unholy distinctions in my eyes and no unworthy favoritism in my actions. Rather, make me into a vessel through whom Jesus shines. In Christ’s name I pray, amen.
CHAPTER 15: PRAY FIRST, PRAY MOST
"But while Peter was in prison, the church prayed very earnestly for him"—Acts 12:5 (NLT).
1. The church still faces her Goliaths. World hunger. Clergy scandal. Stingy Christians. Corrupt officials. Pea-brained and hard-hearted dictators. Peter in prison is just the first of a long list of challenges too big for the church. So our Jerusalem ancestors left us a strategy. When the problem is bigger than we are—we pray! They prayed. They prayed as if prayer was their only hope, for indeed it was. They prayed “very earnestly for him”.
2. Our passionate prayers move the heart of God. “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much” (James 5:16). Prayer does not change God’s nature; who He is will never be altered. Prayer does, however, impact the flow of history. God has wired His world for power, but He calls on us to flip the switch.
3. Most of us struggle with prayer. We forget to pray, and when we remember, we hurry through prayers with hollow words. Our minds drift; our thoughts scatter like a covey of quail. Why is this? Prayer requires minimal effort. No location is prescribed. No particular clothing is required. No title or office is stipulated. Yet you’d think we were wrestling a greased pig.
“Our weapons have power from God that can destroy the enemy’s strong places” (2 Cor. 10:4 NCV).
"Humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God, and God will come close to you" (James 4:7–8 NLT).
"The LORD is close to everyone who prays to Him, to all who truly pray to Him" (Ps. 145:18 NCV).
4. Our prayerful Jesus. Awaking early to pray (Mark 1:35). Dismissing people to pray (Matt. 14:23). Ascending a mountain to pray (Luke 9:28). Crafting a model prayer to teach us to pray (Matt. 6:9–13). Cleansing the temple so others could pray (Matt. 21:12–13). Stepping into a garden to pray (Luke 22:39–46).
Jesus immersed His words and work in prayer. Powerful things happen when we do the same.
5. No other spiritual activity is guaranteed such results. “When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action” (Matt. 18:19 MSG). He is moved by the humble, prayerful heart.
"Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart. Pray for us, too, that God will give us many opportunities to speak about his mysterious plan concerning Christ" (Col. 4:2–3 NLT).
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, You created all that exists, and You sustain all through Your infinite wisdom and boundless power. Yet You invite me to come to You in prayer, boldly and with the expectation that You will hear and answer me. Teach me Lord, to take full advantage of this privilege, especially in regard to reaching others with Your love. Give me a heart (or those who have yet to experience the fullness of Your grace, and prompt me to pray for them and for their welfare, both in this world and in eternity. Lord, bring me to the front lines of this battle. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
CHAPTER 16: THAT'S JESUS PLAYING THE FIDDLE
"Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was Me-you did it to Me"—Matthew 25:40 (MSG).
1. Who had time to notice beauty in the m midst of busyness? Most did not. Most of us will someday realize that we didn’t either. From the perspective of heaven, we’ll look back on these days—these busy, cluttered days—and realize, that was Jesus playing the violin. That was Jesus wearing the ragged clothes. That was Jesus in the orphanage . . . in the jail . . . in the cardboard shanty. The person needing my help was Jesus. There are many reasons to help people in need.
When we love those in need, we are loving Jesus. It is a mystery beyond science, a truth beyond statistics. But it is a message that Jesus made crystal clear: when we love them, we love Him.
2. Jesus will recount, one by one, all the acts of kindness. Every deed done to improve the lot of another person. Even the small ones. In fact, they all seem small. Giving water. Offering food. Sharing clothing. 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.
I wonder if God creates people like Mother Teresa so he can prove His point: “See, you can do something today that will outlive your life”.
3. 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?
Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed Me. I was thirsty, and you gave Me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited Me into your home. I was naked, and you gave Me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for .e. I was in prison, and you visited Me” (Matt. 25:34–36 NLT).
O Lord, where did I see You yesterday ... and didn’t recognize You? Where will I encounter You today. . .and fail to identify You? O my Father, give me eyes to see, a heart to respond, and hands and feet to serve You wherever You encounter me! Transform me Lord, by Your Spirit into a servant of Christ, who delights to meet the needs of those around me. Make me a billboard of Your grace, a living advertisement for the riches of Your compassion. I long to hear You say to me one day, "Well done, good and faithful servant". And I pray that today I would be that faithful servant who does well at doing good. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
