“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” Matthew 25:31-46
I am so excited today! You know when something happens that is only explainable by the goodness of God? That happened today! I'll share next week, it's all still hush hush for now, but my wordy, is it exciting! What I can share however, is about people's generosity.
I have always been a holder-on-er (technical jargon at it's best). I have always found it difficult to let go. And yet this verse that we heard spoken about this morning in church seems to say exactly that: give. Let go, stop holding on to what isn't actually yours anyway. We are in the midst of being so generously taken care of (oh how I WISH I could share!) that it is impossible to not see God's goodness! And how are we seeing God's goodness? Through His people. His people that are looking out for other people.
I am all too aware that with this huge gift comes the responsibility of 'passing it on', knowing that what God blesses us with He can easily take away. But more than anything it is a challenge to me...how am I feeding the hungry? How am I clothing the naked? How am I hydrating the thirsty, helping the sick and visiting those in prison? I fear I fail miserably at this. But surely all that must inspire me is this, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'
No comments:
Post a Comment
thanks for leaving a comment! they make my day xx