Blessed are the poor in spirit.....

Later next month, I’ll be talking to our youth group on poverty right before they participate in the 30hr famine. I’m not sure what that is going to look like, but I’ve been spending some time trying to figure it all out. So far, it’s been a stretching experience and I look forward to how the Lord will manifest it all into something useful and hopefully impactful. I’m also getting prepared to spend the entire summer with the poor, which is also stretching. The combination of the two has challenged me the last couple of weeks….. to define who the poor are, what my role will be and how I can learn from them.

The poor know they are in need. They are unlikely, mostly forgotten and usually humble. They are hungry, dependant and desperate. That makes them different than me. I am none of those things…I should be, but I’m not. They have nothing by the hope of Jesus. Less means less distraction. Full devotion…their poverty actually makes them rich!

“Religion that our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from bring polluted by the world” James 1:27

So what’s my plan? What’s my purpose there? How can I be of impact this summer? Honestly, I really have no idea, but this is what I came up with:

1) Serve God; not for my own agenda or adventure but a towel yielding servant.
“…Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave – just as the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” Mt 20:26-28

2) Walk by faith; Believe in the grace and power of the Lord before I see it. Expect the unbelievable.
“In Lystra there sat a man cripples in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed and called out, ‘Stand up on your feet!’ At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.” Acts 14:7-10

3) Be the hands of Jesus extended to the poor.
Mt. 25:40 “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’”

4) Grow in compassion
“Jesus went through all the town and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Mt 35-36

Along with my “plan”, I can learn from them humility and full dependence…the kind where you are emptied of everything so that you can be filled up by God. I can learn to believe without always seeing, to have faith like a child that is not shaken by a bad day, to be quick to give away but receive slowly without forgetting. These are some of the riches I can attain from the poor.

May I become poor….fully yielded, fully dependant and completely desperate for God alone.