Love And Compassion-The Key To Our Future

Summary: Christians throughout the centuries, in response to the challenge of this passage from Matthew’s Gospel, have tried to help people in need, and in the process have made a better world. We, and they, will reap the reward of our earthly actions. Who would have ever thought that this small Albanian woman would be an agent for change? She was shy and introverted as a child, and she was in fragile health. She was one of three children of a generous but unremarkable businessman. Yet somewhere along her life’s journey, she became convinced that Jesus walked in the “distressing disguise of the poor,” and she set out to love him by loving them. In 1989, she told a reporter that her Missionaries had picked up around 54,000 people from the streets of Calcutta, India and that 24,000 or so had died in her care. None of us can help everyone, but all of us can help someone, and when we help them, we serve Jesus. When we do, we will hear the words of Matthew 25:40, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me”. Today marks the end of the church year. Next week, we will celebrate the beginning of the Advent season. It is a season of preparation for the coming of Christ, and not just his first coming as an infant in that stable in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago. We will also remember that he will come again at the end of the age to set up his kingdom here on earth. No one knows when it will happen, and Jesus warned us not to try to predict when it will happen, but we must always be ready because it can happen at any time. The good deeds commended in verses 25 and 26 are the result of our salvation. They are the criteria that God will use for judgment, because they are the evidence of our saving faith. We are to use our uniqueness and our unique gifts to do God’s work in the world. The good news is that Christians throughout the centuries, in response to the challenge of this passage from Matthew’s Gospel, have tried to help people in need, and in the process have made a better world. We, and they, will reap the reward of our earthly actions on the Day of Judgment, when Christ will look at us and say, “Well done, my good and faithful servants”.