Getting your Christian priorities right – love is for life not just Christmas

“…Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice, and untie the cords of the yoke, and set the oppressed free and break every yoke. Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter – when you see the naked, to clothe him and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” (Isaiah 58:5-11)

God does not care for religious ritual: he wants sacrificed lives. Although we’re not saved by works, we do worship with them. ‘Lively’ worship isn’t about having a cool worship leader playing electric guitar. It is about Christians leading godly and God-fearing lives, serving God by serving the church and serving the world. Romans 12:1 exhorts,

“Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, this is your spiritual act of worship.”

Let me tell you about ‘Katie’. ‘Katie’ was raped. Having nobody else to turn to, a devastated ‘Katie’ called a Christian friend (who was a leader in the Vineyard Church) and asked her to come over and comfort her.

“I can’t. I’ve got to prepare a Bible study for tomorrow night’s class. Sorry.”

Before you judge this Christian too harshly, how many of us actually do the same thing? We may not have Katie on the other end of the telephone, but the unanswered cries of the downtrodden and distressed surround us nonetheless. The Priest and the Levite, in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, were probably on their way to temple when they saw a man suffering. Yet they misunderstood what true religion is about, and “passed by on the other side.”   Jesus commands us to imitate the Samaritan, and not these ‘religious’ folk.  Christians must get their priorities right.

“Love your neighbor as yourself,”  is a command that few obey. Is it any wonder the world cries out, echoing the words of the chart-hit by the Black Eyed Peas,  ‘Where is the Love?’

Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, “The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for, and deserted by everybody.”  (Note I use this quote because it is a good quote in this context - not because I endorse any of her beliefs or teachings – quite the opposite.)

I wanted to tell you about one of the Christmas’s from my childhood. It is the only one I can actually remember as it was one of the few with any real presents! I was brought up in poverty in a deprived and unloving, emotionally abusive household. My mother would let us kids suffer intentionally in order to draw attention to herself – and my father though he had money abandoned his responsibilities. One Christmas, when I was about eight years old, a box of presents was left on our doorstep by a stranger. To this day, I have no idea who left them or why. I guess some Good Samiritan saw us dirty kids and realised our Christmas would be hard.  They bought us some items – a jigsaw and game and a few other things. I think they were second hand, one of the jigsaws even had a piece missing – but really that did not matter to me. Our Christmas had a bit magic and we felt cared about for the first time in a long time and we felt ‘normal’ with presents to unwrap. What was in that box meant the world to us and it still impacts me to this day. Because it was anonymous it had even greater impact.

I would encourage you to think of where the poor or deprived or unloved people are at this Christmas, and leave a gift with them and tag it ‘love from Jesus’.  Pray about it and ask God who may need your help: it may be a little card and a few sweets will be all it takes to make a lonely elderly person’s day, or you should give a bit more money to help a family keeping their house going into foreclosure. But a gift does not have to cost much – even in today’s world – to mean a lot to the right people. A word of caution: the genuine poor usually do not talk about it as they are too proud or ashamed, the ones who always complain are normally ok! Some ‘poor’ people are excellent manipulators so be wise.

However, perhaps it is not money you need to give: babysitting or gardening or walking a disabled person’s dog can equally touch a person.

I recall my mother telling me about the local Jehovah’s Witnesses canvassing in our neighbourhood when I was younger. They had called by and tried to convert my mother who responded: ‘if you really care and want to help me, please help me out for a few hours with my babies. Then I will listen to your religion.’  A depressed and exhausted mother trying to cope cried out for help but the religious people declined to assist – all they wanted to do is talk to her. Rightly so, my mother wanted nothing to do with them and had no interest in what they actually had to say theologically. However, sadly because of this incident she now tarrs all ‘protestant’ religious folk with the same brush  – uncaring  – and you know, I have to admit, she may well be right in large part. The church generally does not care about its own, let alone the world.

Let me tell you about a pregnant unmarried teen alone in a big city. The protestants came and brought truth - religious tracts – to her doorstep, the Catholics bought lies but they brought baby clothes and food with them.

I remember when I was a broke student. I used to hang out in the University Chaplaincy very hungry and unable to afford coffee, let alone food, though I never said this. The Catholic priest even though he knew I had renounced Catholicism and was with the protestants now one day bought me a cup of tea and a chocolate brownie and gently placed it in front of me without a single word being passed between us. It was extremely loving and extremely touching.  The Protestant Vicar would just talk and have lengthy debates with me and the other students that hang out there.

I have always consistently said that despite their heresy, in general Roman Catholics are far more merciful and caring than protestants. They should shame the true church into loving its own and then loving the world.

I mention this next account only to illustrate my point still further - (for years I did not see what happened to me was that wrong. When you are poor and deprived you are grateful for any help you can get, it is only when you start having something and are in a position to give, and as you grow older and more wise and secure and become a parent perhaps that you realise what you experienced was very wrong.) 

When I was much younger, I was homeless and broke through no fault of my own. I had no bad habits like drugs or drink and was a faithful church member for some time prior to that. I had been conned by a series of shark landlords who prey on the poor.  The church of several hundred mainly middle class members I had been attending for several years refused to put me up (even for a little while), though I know for a fact one of the deacons at least had many spare rooms in his large home in a leafy suburb - but instead they packed me off to a very smelly Salvation Army shelter in a notorious red light area of the city which you would not want to even drive through, let alone walk through, far less let a young single girl walk through. No church member would tolerate or sleep at night with the thought of their daughter being there.

Anyway, I stayed there for several months until I was able to save up enough to get out of there. It stank so much I could not eat as it made me retch so I lost weight while I was there and saved money on food – one plus point! God was with me and I am grateful for the Sally Army being there for me – but for a church to do this to its own daughter is disgraceful. (I realise this now I am a parent myself but did not at the time.) They just did not care. How could they care – as they would never let their own personal flesh and blood go through what I had?  ‘Do as you would be done by?’  Yeah, right. And worse still they judged me for my circumstances!

A couple of years later, I had to practically beg to borrow a small amount of money from the same church to afford a small deposit on a bedsit and was made to feel like dirt for doing so. I was judged and looked down on for years afterwards for being poor in this season of my life, though I paid this loan back in full and more so.  ‘She has problems’  the people whispered among themselves – what because I was poor and not one of them (ie middle class)?!  Yet I was then poor because  I served in missions and thus did not have a full time permanent paid job and also did not have a rich or caring family to fall back on.

It is not a crime and never has been a crime to be poor! And they whispered even more and looked down their noses when I befriended homeless people and dared to take them to church with me, and judged me when I treated these ‘people with problems’, the ‘have nots’ equally to the rich and the ‘haves’.  This was wrong, wrong, wrong! This church, by the way, was a leading light and had a reputation for the liveliest doctrinally sound church in the city. Supposedly it was spirit-filled.

Not all homeless people are homeless because it is their fault or they have ‘problems’. Some’s only ‘problem’ is being poor! And even if  they are suffering through drugs/alcohol abuse etc, should we not show them compassion? (Of course many people will turn  to drink, drugs or prostitution to cope with being homeless – and though I do not claim this is right, it is understandable. Before judging these ‘fallen ones’ too harshly, have you ever spent a winter’s night out on the street without any shelter with the world harshly staring at you and rejecting you? Drink feels  like it will help keep people warm and/or make them so blotto they can ‘cope’ with the biting cold wind and the icy stares. And do you know how many people are sexually abused or otherwise taken advantage of because of their plight? Before you judge that ‘hooker’, understand that he/she may have been ‘broken’ years before after they had their dignity taken from them against their will, having been abused since a young age in care homes/hostels and in the ’system’. With little self respect left and no virginity to cherish, they figure they may as well make some money with their body to get by and survive.)

I have heard people say about the poor ‘it is all their fault’.  This attitude is particularly prominent among republican conservatives in the USA, but it is rife to a lesser extent in almost every other circle. They are self made men and women, and in a land of opportunity and the free they figure anyone can do it and become rich if they did it. This is grossly ignorant as not everyone has the same oppportunities. Some poor may well be lazy etc etc but not all the poor are. ‘There but the grace of God go I…‘  is something some ‘rich’ people learn only when they hit tough times themselves.

I remember trying to explain to rich Southerners in the mid 1980s who were never having it so good in Thatcher’s Britain (the time of the yuppies), that what was being experienced in parts of the South East was not countrywide. In the South East anybody then who could work but did not have work was lazy – it was their fault. The politicians living in the affluent home counties surrounded by these lazy people therefore judged all the unemployed in the whole entire nation by these ones, and it influenced their unrighteous policies re housing and unemployment, poll tax etc.

But in the recession hit North, this was not the truth. Many hard working and well qualified people could genuinely not find work – even menial stuff. I vividly recall going into a job centre in the centre of Liverpool in the mid 1980s. It was one of the most depressing sights I have seen. A large crowd of mainly men, with no hope, stood there staring at a mere handful of vacancies on the boards. I think there was only about three cards in the whole job centre and it was for commission based sales work/pyramid schemes. After failing at the job centre to find anything, by my own initiative I trudged around a Northern City for a whole day, going in and out shops and the market stalls asking for work and could not get anything, even in the fast food joints. When I told people in the South about this, they said ‘you are lying, places like MacDonalds always have jobs’.  It was totally incomprehensible to them that some people genuinely could not get work if they tried. They judged the world by their own experiences and opportunities, not realising the same opportunities are not universal. It is not a level playing field out there – and never has been.

One of my dearest friends, I’ll call her Susie, was a Bible School graduate living in the plush west part of the city. With a nice address she was treated like ‘normal’ by others. She then moved (by necessity) just a couple of miles away north to one of the worse public housing schemes in the city. She was still the same person, nothing but her living circumstances had changed. She had a huge heart for the poor so was glad to be there and she was happy to have a home. But the way she was treated by people – even in the church – was markedly differant. People very obviously turned their nose up at her, many of her church friends dropped off. She was no longer invited to job interviews because of the ‘bad’ address on her Curriculum Vitae (I have known other people have to give alternative addresses in order to get work.)  She became an untouchable to many. It was markedly obvious what was happening in a very quick time. She was being judged for where she lived and whom she lived among. About a year and a half later she married a rich guy (whom she had known before) and moved back to the rich West End of the City and was suddenly ‘touchable’ again. She had experienced all this rejection in a very short period of time. Pity the poor people that are born there and have no way out of this rejection.

YWAM moved into this same housing scheme to church plant, and I knew some of the missionaries there very well as I did those on another YWAM base on another infamously rough housing scheme on another side of they city. They were great people, and I loved some of them to bits, but I found it a great shame that whenever they explained to Christian folk where they lived they would feel the need to justify the dirty look by saying, ‘I’m a missionary there’  or ‘I’m planting a church there’.  Then the Christian folk they’d meet would treat them as ‘normal’, visibly giving out a deep sigh of relief as the person was not one of ‘them’ after all – ‘them’  being the poor underclass.  Their whole attitude changed though I am not sure they were conciously aware of it. They would respect a missionary living in a bad area, but not someone living there out of necessity. The poor they would tolerate, patronise perhaps but not respect and treat as normal equals. What the missionaries were really saying to the church they met (and proclaiming to the poor they worked among) was: ‘I’m not really one of ‘them’, I’m ‘above’ them, I am better than that.’  It was an ‘us and them’ mentality, though I do not think they even realised what they were doing or really saying either. I did not really recognise things for what they really were at the time, though many things did not sit right with me and it is only with the benefit of and increased wisdom in the Lord I recognise what was actually going on. It was probably why they were not that effective as missionaries. 

I saw this same attitude consistently in almost all the YWAM teams and its leaders on these poor schemes over a period of years (about fifty or sixty people in all passing through), with the exception of one guy who stood out like a sore thumb. His life was committed to the poor and downtrodden. Though he was from another country and social class, he was ‘one of them’ or became one of them. He saw the poor as fellow human beings totally equal with him. His nose was not upturned subconciously or otherwise. His body language did not betray him, He did not patronise. The poor people – indeed everyone – loved him, and rightly so. They knew he loved them. His ministry among the people,  I believe, was far more effective than all the other YWAMMers including its leaders. He had the stuff of a true missionary.

It was not just YWAM with this ‘us and them’ attitude. On soup runs the Christian churches and charities would also make it quite clear ‘who’ was ‘who’ – us and them - but sometimes a couple of teams would intermingle from ‘rival’ churches or charities who would not know each other.  I remember one helper was mistaken for a homeless person at a soup kitchen. ‘No, I’m not one of them’, she cried in horror, deeply offended. But why be so offended? What did it really matter? Is this not actually pride? Her attitude summed up the church’s to the poor. Us and them. Patronising. Hurtful. Rejecting. Unloving (though they think they are kind and good to the poor).

I remember these same church people giving me dirty looks for sitting among the homeless people (this was before I experienced homelessness myself), being indistinguishable from ’them’, sharing the gospel with them side by side as a friend instead of separating myself and leading ’from the front’. I had always wondered why I was far more effective in evangelism and in getting results – conversions – than others by a long way. I say this not to boast – far from it – but to make a point. I think I realise now, and it is only with the benefit of hindsight. Yes the Lord had called me, and yes I have his Holy Spirit and his spiritual gifts and guidance, and without God I can do nothing, BUT I think leading side by side instead of from a ‘raised platform’ from the front was a large key in being an effective missionary amongst the poor.

Become one of ‘them’ and you will open up doors you never thought possible.

One time when I was out shopping, I knew that God had a ‘divine appointment’ for me that morning. Then I saw him; a homeless guy sitting on the pavement, slumped against the wall, looking very depressed with a pill bottle nearby. I walked up to him and started talking to him. I was very aware as I spoke to him that albeit I was bent over slightly, I was standing over him. I was aware that my body language was very ‘us and them’, it was patronising.  I have a choice, I thought. I believe the Holy Spirit brought this to mind at the time and was convicting me as I do not normally analyse such situations in such a way at the time. ‘I can carry on standing and speak some sweet encouraging words and be relatively ineffective in my impact into his life OR I can get down on the ground with him on his level and sit by him for a time.’ I knew this.  I saw pedestrians stare at me, and I knew if I got down on the ground they’d think I was ‘one of them’ and my reputation as an ‘upstanding citizen’ would go to pot. If I stayed stood up I would appear just a do gooding housewife and my reputation would be OK. I made a choice and got down on the ground with him and we sat together and talked and I broke open my shopping bag and shared some food with him. I was no longer one of ‘them’ judging him, I was his friend, we bided a time and he opened up to me in a way he would not have had I stayed standing. Later on after sharing the gospel, I prayed with him and he commited his life to Christ. He said he was on the verge of taking the pills and ending it all before God had sent me to him. But I had to let go of my ‘reputation’ to be really effective  that day and I had to get dirty. 

Every time after that when I saw him in church, he’d make a beeline to me and be honest with me, even though he knew other Christians there much better and for much longer. His barriers were up with them, but not in the same way with me.

If you find barriers in your ministry, then perhaps the barriers need taken down your side (not their) for you to be really effective.

So go spread a little love this Christmas. But remember love is for life, not just for Christmas!

The first commandment is to, “…love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” 

‘Strength’ implies energy needing to be exerted.

“For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’  They … will answer him, ‘Lord when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick and in prison and did not help you?’ He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”

Before doing anything, many Christians wait “to be led”. If they ain’t led, that homeless man ain’t fed. They wait to be explicitly instructed before moving. I don’t expect to be ‘led’ before I feed my family, so why should the Church expect to be ‘led’ before it feeds the ‘family of man’? Like the apostle John says in the book 1 John which I have quoted from frequently of late because I find it so specifically relevant for these apostate times: how can you say you love your brother when you let them go hungry or with their needs unmet? John says the ONE true anointing will lead us to love and to serve by his definition, to be holy and to honour truth - whereas a false anointing will lead us into pride and hypocrisy and self serving super spirituality and into sin and error.

The apostle John in I John said that true Christians with the one true anointing would be characterised by love (expressed in works of service to others and to God), holiness (meaning avoidance of and hatred of sin not super spirituality) and truth (loving the word and avoiding error and testing false teachings and spirits). The apostate emerging church can be summed up as being very passionate – but with a fired up zeal without knowledge based on experience after experience and a false anointing that has no foundation so that when heat comes - puff,  faith is gone.  

Worship and passion is all very well, but not if is of ‘another Jesus’. For did not even Jesus say in Matthew 25 ‘away from me you evil doers I know you not?’

Please read Mathew 24:36 through to end Mathew 25. The parables of the Faithful Servant, The Ten Virgins, and then The Sheep and the Goats.  You can also compare these with the Parable of the Talents and even the Good Samiritan. They are all saying basically the same thing. God is looking for servants. He expects service from his people and if he does not get it He will be angry indeed.

Jesus said the church at the end of the age would be characterised by lack of love as it would be characterised by lack of service and the apostle of love, John, understood (the book of I John again) that no actions means no real love, and no real love means no real anointing and thus no real knowledge of the real God and thus no real salvation. This lack of love and service is also associated with apostasy and a lack of love of the truth, a lack of righteousness and continuing in habitual sin. This is why Jesus said ‘away from me you evil doers…I did not know you.’ because it is the truth. It is not a denial of those who he already knows but is merely angry with as they were bone idle. These professing ‘Christians’ goats do no truly know God for they do not love, they do not serve, they do not love scripture and do not test truth, they do not hate sin. They do not know Him, for if they did they know him and have a true and not counterfeit anointing that comes with real faith and real repentence then would do these right things ‘naturally’ supernatually – the goats at the end of the age have thus recieved a counterfeit anointing and counterfeit salvation as they do not do these things! Think on these things, this is a vital truth the modern church must hear! Ask not ‘have you asked Jesus into your heart’  but ask ‘what is your heart doing for Jesus?’

I believe the real call to the church in Laodicea is one to love – but not with a mystical gnostic self serving sensual fired up love but one that loves God and others and is proven in works of service. Thus the real Laodicean church of the 21st century is a fired up passionate worshipping and radical church which embraces experience and gnostic knowledge but does not embrace the world or its own brothers and sisters in true love expressing itself in actions and does not embrace the true Jesus for it does not truly know Him (for if it did it would love as per I John and keep His commands by nature). They are the ‘evil-doers’ Christ talks about, for what they did not do for a lost and hurting world, they did not do for Him. Because they did not really care.

They are similar to the church in Sardis that Christ says of:  ‘I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die. So remember what you have received and heard; and keep it, and repent. Therefore if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you.’ (See how this compares with Mathew 24 talking about the end time church being ready and need to be keeping on serving til that time!)

The ‘waking up’ is not in relation to prophetic revelation and knowledge of the times (though that is important), in this context it is about the worthless servant stirring himself into action – getting a kick up the backside to serve! Getting a wake up call.) 

The church in Sardis’ deeds betray them as all but dead! Are you dead or alive? What do your deeds betray about you? Convicting eh? But oh be wise now and submit yourself to God willingly while you have the chance and let Him have you inside and out and then become a real flame of fire that will not be snuffed out!

Church: Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, repent!

A true anointing will lead to true love and to true service and to true repentence and true holiness.

The Christian’s mission is being a ‘Christian’ twenty-four seven. This calling is universal to every man and irrevocable. Do not think, somehow, your calling is different.

“Come follow me,” Jesus says. What are you waiting for?

“‘Not called!’ did you say? ‘Not heard the call,’ I think you should say.” (William Booth)

***

(The Salvation Army often invited Christian ministries such as Teen Challenge and other churches to give a gospel presentation to the hostel residents. I was shocked how patronising they were when they came, and how they treated the residents of the hostel so differantly and with obvious, albeit disguised, contempt. They would never have spoken as they did at a normal church. Did they still do good? Yes. But they should not have made us to feel like dirt. We were differant only in that we were poor. It is not and never has been a crime to be poor! The church needs an attitude adjustment as well as a kick up the backside when she goes out with acts of mercy!)