God has blessed me so much. I have been heading up a couple of projects at my church that have been rewarding beyond anything I have expected. One of them was overwhelmingly rewarding today. Over the last couple of years God has given me opportunities to minister to the homeless in my community. I have developed several relationships with local citizens who are living in poverty. This has been a huge tug on my heart. To invest love and relationship to the outcasts of the Napa Valley. The Lord has laid on my heart some projects and ministry to put into effect for that specific area of our community. In time and with prayer they will be reality. One of them has been to organize a shuttling system for the homeless community and others for them to get to church. So many people don't go to church because transportation is such a big road block for them. But God won't let that from keeping people from Him. He will always make a way. Because of His time and His planning a need has become evident to do just that, organize a shuttling system to pick up several people from a local transitional shelter in our town. I didn't initiate it. In fact, I didn't go beyond a brief conversation of counseling about it with a couple staff at our church. It was amazing. From the inspiring preaching one sunday from one of our pastors a man's heart was stirred to reach out to the shelter he was staying at. He rallied a group who didn't have transportation who stayed at his shelter. On top of that, there was a group of 3 individuals, two who walked, who stayed a nearby homeless camp in our city. So through emails and phone calls I arranged to get a hold of a larger car than I have and I shuttled in several people from the shelter to my church. During that service at least half of them gave or recommitted their lives to Christ. It was a dream come true for me.

That was last week. Over the last few days I have been working with staff and willing attendees of our congregation who committed to picking some of them up. We have had a great response from our congregation to reach out to the homeless community. We shuttled in 10 homeless or transitional living people from the shelter and surrounding area. It was such a beautiful response from both the congregation and local homeless. God is truly blessing this direction we are going in.

The most important part of it for me was during our amazing worship. I was playing guitar up on stage and I looked out into the crowd of worshipping, hungry people. I looked out and saw a specific young man with hands raised high and tears filling up his eyes. I was introduced to this person before from some previous homeless projects I had worked on. He was my age. He was young. Poor. Broken. Last week He came up to me to receive Christ as his Saviour, and I led him in the sinners prayer. It was so beautiful. Another party in Heaven was taking place for a heart won to Christ. As I talked to him more I heard a story of a broken past and an alone young man. He was the grandson of a pastor. His sister died, his father died, and now his mother was on her death bed. To make things worse he is having to stay at a shelter, for no obvious family is around to help him. My heart breaks for him and his situation. The image of him worshipping and pouring himself out to God in his brokenness will forever stay in my mind. Pray for my friend. He is going through a tough time in his life.

This is only one of many stories that were at our services today. Many of them worse. Jesus asks us to reach out to the least of these. He says that if we give a cup of water to them in His name we are doing it for Him. When we reach out to the broken we are touching a special place in Gods heart. I can't wait to see the thousands of people in Heaven that turned to Christ because of the kindness of a stranger. As a body and as tools of Christ we can be so effective if we die to self, make ourselves no better than anyone else, and reach out to those that other won't reach out too. Let us all get to a special place in our relationship with God, with others, and with ourselves that we are willing to put our selfishness down and associate ourselves with the socially outcast, a homeless person, or maybe a mentally unhealthy individual. Maybe its hanging out with senior citizens that are visited by family only on holidays and are left alone and forgotten the rest of the year. It could be a prostitute in an inner-city, gang infested nearby community. Whoever it is the heart of Jesus is to love everybody, especially those who nobody else loves. Let us have the eyes of Jesus so we can see what He sees. Let us grab the heart of Jesus and stick it inside our chest, so we can love like He loves and touch His heart.