Tuesday; February 27

The other day I was pondering the question, “What does our church believe?” and I learned a pretty insightful lesson.  You see, when I answered this question I came up with what I thought were some pretty solid answers – we believe in the Almighty power and presence of God, we have faith that Jesus is God and was a man, we profess the need for baptism, we accept the infallible inspiration of the Bible through the Holy Spirit and so on – but, it took me a while to get to something that was probably too far down my list ... we love people!  As I pondered my theological processing I was intrigued by how long it took me to get to this observation. 
Are people really important to us?  While we must make sure our worship of God is in order, we should never forget our relationship with our fellow man.  Since one of the most deeply-seated human needs is to feel valued; so how much easier would it be to influence people who ask us, “What do you believe?” if we acknowledge our love for them.  What would happen if, somewhere near the beginning of the conversation, we said something like, “We believe that you are important, we love you and we want to help you be blessed by the presence of God in your life.”?  This is not a sales pitch, it is at the heart of Christianity.  We are reminded that “... God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) and that Jesus taught “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:36)
Is our love and appreciation for people at the forefront of our ministry?  If not, who and what are we missing?
Think About It!

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