"Partners Outside Our Group "
The recent tornado in central Florida left multiple families’ lives in shambles. It will take a long time to rebuild, restore and recover. A little glimmer of encouraging news came out of that disaster zone. An Adventist lady from there writes:
“When we got to church on Sabbath we found that 7 families from our church had lost their homes. If you saw the pictures on the news and the Church of God that was destroyed -- our Adventist disaster van and tent was set up on their property to manage the food program and distribute disaster supplies. We had folk staying at our church that were working at the van. It was a very nice setup and I was impressed. It was like a semi trailer with a very large tent with banners etc. What I thought interesting was that it was the Church of God property with an Adventist disaster relief van and tent - serving food from the Catholic Church. The folk working at the van said they accepted food donations from other churches and restaurants and they just served it. It was nice to know that we can all work together for the good of everyone.”
In a crisis even enemies put aside their animosities in order to survive and work together to find a solution. We don’t need to put aside our beliefs in order to work together with other Christians to bring hope and relief to needy people. But we do need to put aside our attitudes that reflect exclusivity and isolation. Luke 9:49-50 instructs us. John said to Jesus, “Master, we saw someone using your name to cast out demons, but we told him to stop because he isn’t in our group.” But Jesus said, “Don’t stop him! Anyone who is not against you is for you.” It seems that Jesus wants us to look outside our “group” and consider ourselves partners with those outside our “group” who do service for Christ.
I pray that God will lead our church to join hands with other Christians to become involved in helping those in our community who have needs.
--Pastor Ivan Blake |
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