And You Visited Me

Matthew 25: 42 - 43, For I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.' NKJV

Paul was given amazing revelations about God's infinite wisdom, as well as divine understanding about Jesus as the Christ. In Colossians, he tells us that God has made known to us what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

It is a mystery to the world that a sinner can be transformed and become righteous through faith. Since the lost don't believe in God or in His Word, they don't believe that a person can truly change. This can help us understand why worldly people, who refuse to believe that a person can be born again and change, also struggle with forgiving those who have wronged them. Man wants us to make things right before forgiveness is granted, but God extended forgiveness to us while we were still sinners, two-thousand years ago. When we seek God's forgiveness, He then gives us Christ, and Christ in us makes us right; it is not of our own works.  We must accept His forgiveness by faith, because we can't do anything to earn it or undo anything that we've already done.

The world doesn't realize or acknowledge that God can transform us, because Satan, the "god of this world" has blinded them to the truth that Christ dwells in our hearts by faith. Jesus describes what the term "saved by faith" means when He told His disciples to allow the children to come to Him for of such was the kingdom of heaven. He also used the innocent faith/trust of a child to tell us that if we desire to be saved from sin and to not go back into it, we must become like a little child and trust our heavenly Father... without conditions. When we place our trust in the work of Christ and allow Him to fill our hearts, we become a new creature in Him.

Sometimes, we, Christians can find ourselves in very difficult and demanding situations. It is in this context that Jesus is teaching us, His disciples, to reach out to people wherever they might be. Since Christ is on the inside of us, people might not recognize Him in us as quickly when we are homeless, hungry, sick, naked, or in prison, but God does. Jesus teaches us to look at people as He does. He doesn't look at our surroundings, bank account, education, gender, ethnicity, or failures, but He does look on the heart. Since He looks on the heart and has forgiven us while we were sinners, He requires us to look beyond others' faults and see their needs through eyes of compassion.

As you can see in today's scripture, Jesus can be found in all types of situations. Yet, if we don't seek Him out while He is there in the hearts of the hurting and cast down, then He will find fault with us when we stand before Him on Judgment Day. God is just and the justifier of all that will believe. He is just toward me, and He is just toward you.  So, if I treat you unjust while He treats me just, then I will pay the price for the error of my own self-righteous ways. By the same token, if someone is treating you unjustly, you are not justified by returning the same treatment to them. We must trust the Father, who sees the things that are done in secret, but rewards (good or evil) openly.

If you're a Christian, and you're not already involved in your church's benevolent ministries, then GET INVOLVED; reach outside the walls! Let's be Christ both to those who have Christ, but don't look like Him, because of where life has landed them and to those who need to meet Him for the first time.

Reaching Out to the World,
Pastor Asa