『Jesus Quest #4: Make a Genuine Sacrifice for Those with Less』のカバーアート

Jesus Quest #4: Make a Genuine Sacrifice for Those with Less

Jesus Quest #4: Make a Genuine Sacrifice for Those with Less

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 Hi Disciple!Money. In 2 Corinthians 8-10 Paul spends three whole chapters just talking about giving money away. There's tipping, then there's truly sacrificing something you love to meet the true need of another person who is suffering and stuck.I was raised in an ascending lower middle class family. My dad's people were hard-working farmers and turpentine gatherers. Not much money in that. My dad's generation got more education and all of them left farming for factory and professional jobs. My dad became an accountant and rose to become the head of the entire international firm. That’s America. This journey took a lifetime.My generation across the extended family got the benefit of our parent’s steady rise. I think all of us got the education we wanted and with it all the opportunities we could pursue. Like all other families, we had times when money was short and we had to work harder to have the things we wanted.We always had food, shelter, and clothing, however. For this, I'm so grateful.For the past 35 years Sherry and I have lived in Southeast Asia and in the last 10 years we’ve been working closely with a ministry focused on trafficking which connects to the deepest kind of poverty. I sat at a table in a communist country with ministry friends talking to a young lady, modestly dressed, about her current work as a prostitute. She said she was from the mountains, doing this job to try and get the money to pay someone to take her to Malaysia so she could get a job in a factory. Poverty is complicated. I’m not sure there’s a clear formula for eradicating it. In general, good food and a chance to get an education seem to be a working prescription. This young lady’s entire life story could've been rewritten had she just been embraced by a local church that loved her and saw her potential and would help her find transformation through Jesus. There she could have put her chaotic childhood to good use as fuel for a determination to break the cycle in her own life and for her family members. She intended to send her factory wages home to them.The body of Christ is so powerful when it pulls together.At other times there’s a disaster and God’s people sacrifice and throw their tools and extra beddings and food in the backs of pickup trucks and fly out to give help in those crucial first hours after a tornado, flood or fire.We can feel God’s smile on us in those times.Paul’s Counsel to the CorinthiansIf you read 2 Corinthians 8-10 you'll find Paul telling the church that they need to put some system into their good intentions. Most people have good intentions. They sincerely want to be a blessing on the Earth.Paul reminds this gifted, wealthy church that good intentions are not enough. They need to make a plan as givers, set giving goals, and start pooling the money up, not waiting for a moment of inspiration.Sherry and I have been able to give every day of our lives to world evangelism and the training of a new generation of leaders because of a set of friends who emerged in the first ten years of our journey (you know who you are). These friends made a plan and told us, “You can count on us monthly for X amount. We won’t stop as long as we have jobs.” We’ve watched our friends return from the field year by year because they lacked a group of friends like ours. Systems matter. Systems make things happen.Maybe it’s an extra 5% set aside to create your giving pool. Maybe it’s that emergency $100 in your wallet. Some kind of plan so that when you see someone pumping gas into a milk jug to carry to their broke down car you can put some money in their hand and give them a ride back to their car.This Jesus Quest is about stepping up your level of sacrifice for those who are in trouble so you can be God’s hands extended to them.It’s a happy lesson, because it’s one of the big ways we can all fulfill our purpose as humans created to be the image of God.Hope you Enjoy this Quest and work on it daily!Every Blessing, ChuckPS: Your daily prompt questions are below the video for this week.Thanks for reading Grounded! This post is public so feel free to share it.Here are the prompts for your devotional time this week:## Jesus Quest Week 4: Making Genuine Sacrifice for the Poor### Day 1: Recognizing the Poor Among Us**Scripture Reference:** Deuteronomy 15:11> "There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land."**Reflection:** This week Jesus Quest has us trying to decide how to rewrite the life story of other people by intervening in life conditions caused by poverty. For example, no little girl dreams of being a prostitute someday—that life generally comes to the poor. Some families suffer from generational poverty and they just can't reach high enough to unlock the door to a better life. God will bless us so we can be a blessing to them and boost them up through interventions so ...
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