Saturday, June 7, 2008

SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY: Matthew 25:31-46

PSALM OF THE WEEK: Psalm 46

HYMN OF THE DAY: CH#183 “We Meet You, O Christ” [Due to Copyright restrictions, no link is available for this hymn]

VERSE OF THE DAY: “As you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” Matthew 25:40b RSV

 

You cannot earn your way into heaven.  It is a free gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Those who receive it respond to it by both accepting God’s love and putting that love into action.  These actions of reaching out to others are not “works” that we can perform to impress God.  People who try that will be disappointed when all of the times they failed are pointed out to them (see verses 41-46).  On the other hand, the people of Lord just reach out to others without even thinking about it.  They will actually be surprised when all the good things they did are pointed out to them (see verses 34-40).  The important thing here is that we are to live our lives in Christ’s love in such a way that it just naturally flows out to others in what we do. Ironically, when we do this best is when we don’t mentally enumerate all the good things we do for people, we just do what comes naturally in our Christian lives.  Keep on helping others in your life and through the life of the church with our special offerings and our ministries (like the Angel Food, Community Thanksgiving, Helping Neighbors, etc.).

 

PRAYER: O Lord of Action, I pray that I have been reaching out and helping the “least of these” with out even knowing it.  Give me more opportunities to serve you by serving others.  May I always respond in your selfless Love instead of my self-interest. Amen.

 

See you in Church Sunday,

Pastor Sandy

 

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