As I started driving home from work today, she flagged me down at a stoplight across the street from the coffee shop where me and some friends meet a couple of times each week before going out to witness at the Tulsa County Courthouse. She begged for a few dollars to get something to eat. She was dirty. Sweaty. Unkept. Sad situation. In my flesh, I wanted to keep going. But then the Lord seemed to bring the verse to my mind: "give to him that asks of you and from him who would borrow of you do not turn away .... (Matt. 5)"
As I gave her a couple of dollars, I asked her name. Gretchen, she said. I explained that I had something for her far greater than money for food. What's that, she asked. I handed her a million dollar bill. Oh, that's not real, she objected. But it has information on it worth much more than a million dollars. If you died today, do you know where you'd spend eternity? The answer to that question is far more important than even a million dollars or your next meal, I added. I hope to go to heaven, she said. I told her that the good news is that the bible says she can know for sure what her eternal destiny would be. How, she asked. As I began to explain to her that her sins separated her from God and that she desperately needed a savior, she began to back quickly out of the conversation. She threw the million dollar bill back into my lap in the car and started to walk off. I urged her to consider her eternal fate before it's too late, but she kept going since she had the real money safely in hand.
She cared more about the food that perishes than the food which endures to everlasting life. In John 6, after feeding the five thousand, Jesus told the crowd not to labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to everlasting life. He said He is the Bread of Life. They didn't want Him. They just wanted their fleshly lusts satisfied. Gretchen was too bound up in satisfying her fleshly lusts and wants than turning her gaze toward the heavens and falling in love with the creator of the universe and the one who could forever satisfy her greatest hungers, her hunger for love, her hunger for meaning, her hunger for purpose, her hunger for significance, her hunger for rest, peace, and eternal fulfillment and contentment and security ....
Jesus also made clear that His true followers actually join Him in His daily mission of seeking to save the lost. Are you a true follower? Are you truly following? What do you hunger for most? Do you hunger for a walk with the Lord that truly involves fellowship with the Lord. In Philippians 3, Paul declared that he longed for the fellowship that comes from joining Jesus in his walk and sufferings. There's a knowledge of the Lord and a depth of intimacy that only comes when we really follow him closely and do what he asks us to do--GO into ALL the world and preach the gospel to EVERY creature. God help me.
No comments:
Post a Comment