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.
