It's Just One Ant

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

Proverbs 6:6-8

6Go to the ant, you sluggard;

consider its ways and be wise!

7It has no commander,

no overseer or ruler,

8yet it stores its provisions in summer

and gathers its food at harvest.

I think we often feel powerless as if the little we could give or contribute would not really be enough to make a difference. I believe the powers of darkness work over time to keep us thinking that way. What we don't realize is that if a lot of us did just a little, big things could happen. 

Click Photo To Visit and Listen to Healing Stream Stations

I hear my friend Mark Kenny of Healing Stream Media inviting people to help with launching another station or to support the 6 that already exist. Sometimes I am able to help and other times I'm frustrated because I'm not sure how I am going to keep gas in the cars or food on the table. Sometimes I allow that feeling of powerlessness to sink in and hold me back when I should take a step of faith even if its a very little one. What if you and I decided that we wanted to stand up and resist those feelings of lack and powerlessness. What if we heard those appeals and we decided that we would do something.

There is a different radio station my church supports in Alaska that reaches out to the Soviet Union it is supported by everyone, in every Covenant Church, giving one dollar, on one Sunday of the Year. There is power that is released when we decide to push past those feelings of lack and powerlessness  to stand together in unity to do something.  

Do you remember the scene in the movie A Bugs Life. The Bad Boss grasshopper is trying to impress on his minions that if one ant stands up, others might also and before you know it there goes their way of life. Its a powerful little clip. If you are getting this in your e-mail you will have to click on the post title to get back the main site to see it, or here's the YouTube Link http://youtu.be/VLbWnJGlyMU

I have been writing this week about God's heart towards the poor and the need for Mission Churches in America. We have churches that are thriving and others like my own that is made up of 3/4's homeless and poor people each Sunday that are not really able to support themselves. The question our staff and board wrestles with is how do you do church in America if most of your congregation lives under the bridge, or in shelters or subsidized housing? We pray and God has supplied in amazing ways to keep the doors open so we can continue to minister to our very poor neighbors.  It is however a constant struggle that we wrestle with and continually lift before the Lord. In most places it is enough to pass the plate on a Sunday. I sometimes ask God why there is such inequity with in His "Church".  Often we think we are doing great things for God by building cushy buildings for our people or erecting giant Jesus statues that eventually get struck by lightening and putting resources to building another.

Source: grist.org via Margot on Pinterest

Maybe rebuilding statues is a great testimony of faith but I have to think it is yet another thing that the languishing world around us mocks and laughs at particularly when our streets are filled with homeless people. We have a society of Christians who for the most part think their Christian duty is fulfilled simply by attending church services. So as I wrestle with the inequities, I find God saying to me "Who can I send, who will go for me." I realize that I am to be a voice for change. A voice that causes people to examine their priorities. 

I contend that if you are spending time in God's presence and enjoying amazing times of worship or in the word that you should get filled up and then go out and pour it out to those who are hungry or thirsty.  Perhaps you experienced personal healing and being set free from the things that have held you in bondage - that is great. That is certainly wonderful but you can't just stay there. You have to take that new found healing and freedom in Christ and do something with it. You have to come off the dang mountain and use what you have received to minister to a broken, lost and hurting world. Too often we are spending the anointing of God on our own pleasure and comfort. Isaiah had an incredible experience in the Lord's presence but he did not remain there. He heard God's call to "go" and he responded as should you and I.

Isaiah 6:7-9

New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)

⁷ With it he touched my mouth and said, 

“See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” ⁸ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 

“Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

⁹ He said, “Go and tell this people:

“‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding;

    be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’    

I'm pretty sure it was a frusting call to be sent to people who would not hear, or understand. He was sent to people who had hard hearts toward God despite the fact that God had done countless miracles in their midst. Difficulty is not necessarily a sign that God is not working in something. His blessings often come in unlikely packages, that are harder than we might expect. It is because we need to learn dependance on Him.

Source: missionsplace.com via Margot on Pinterest

This picture is depicting a powerful article by William Booth the founder of the Salvation Army is forever etched in my mind. Look at the people on the bridge who have been saved from the sea. They have completely forgotten the sea full of perishing people from which they came.

It's easy to think the problems in our world will be solved by someone else. That it's not our problem that people live under the bridge, or are held in bondage to poverty or addiction. That people are still in our century sold in to slavery. Sometimes our attitude is they made their bed - now they can lie in it. I'm not convinced that is the heart of God. 

Blessed is he who is poor in spirit....(Matthew 5:3)...for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Most of us are not farmers and our's is not an agricultural society, but I think we have to think how this verse fits and apply in our technological world of today.  Leviticus 23:22
“When you harvest the crops of your land, do not harvest the grain along the edges of your fields, and do not pick up what the harvesters drop. Leave it for the poor and the foreigners living among you. I am the Lord your God.”

Deuteronomy 15:11
“There will always be some in the land who are poor. That is why I am commanding you to share freely with the poor and with other Israelites in need.”

Proverbs 14:31
“He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.”

Proverbs 21:13
“If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered.”

Isaiah 58:6-7
“No, this is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help.”

I've only chose a few of the many verses one can find on this subject - and lest you think it all old testament here are more expressing the same heart of God toward the poor in the New Testament. 

Luke 3:11
“John replied, ‘If you have two shirts, give one to the poor. If you have food, share it with those who are hungry.’”

Luke 4:18
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free.”

There are a lot of places where one can help to advance God's kingdom. My friends at the Healing Stream have 6 wonderful and very different stations that will bless and encourage you. Take a listen and then visit the donation page and help keep them on the air. Click the line of photos to get to their site they have easy secure online donation buttons all set up under the donate tab.

My own little church could use your help consider giving to a mission church that is regularly feeding and ministering to the homeless and poor. Our seats are filled with poor people and our offering plates are filled with change. I don't think its God's intention for them to stay poor and homeless but it is a considerable journey that requires a lot of love, patience support and prayer. Please pray to the Lord of the harvest that he would send workers into this harvest field. I invite you to be part of what God is doing, it is a work of transformation and hope. If you can't go to such a mission field - than give.

There are two places on our web site http://www.fccspokane.org/ 

where you can give an online donation. 

1. If you want to help support a church for the homeless and poor pull down the "About" tab an at the bottom you will find Tithes and Offerings and that will take you to a paypal donation page.

2. If you would like to help pay to feed the homeless a hot meal each week you would use the "Streetwise" tab and donate though paypal to Streetwise.

                                               Thanks, Margot 

The Sheep and Goat Standard

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio 

1 John 3:17 If anyone has material possessions 

and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?

I could tell you stories about each of these people-they are the faces of real people that we minister to every week.

Its Valentines day and I could write some sappy love piece but I'm not because I believe that love is more than lip service, nice words, dinner out, flowers and a box of chocolates. When I look at Jesus' example of love I see that love is action, love is laying down your life, making sacrifices and caring for others. Love is leaving your place of comfort and to go to be born in a smelly barn and to hang on a cross. Love does not stop when our own life is healed, prosperous, and strong, love turns around and goes back for the out casts and the lepers of our world.

My post today is about God's heart for the poor.  Did you know that the word "poor" is found 175 times in the bible? I found the word homeless one time and surprisingly not about the people I expected to be homeless. You expect that those who know the Lord and follow his word - should prosper right? We are pretty steeped in the American Apple Pie Prosperity Gospel because guess who the homeless are in 1 Corinthians 4? Its the apostles. They actually followed Jesus's example. He left his home to reach those who were broken and perishing. So did they. Here's what the apostles have to say. ^"8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have become kings—and that without us! How I wish that you really had become kings so that we might be kings with you! ⁹ For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men. ¹⁰ We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! ¹¹ To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. ¹² We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; ¹³ when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world."

If these guys, the apostles who were the closest to Jesus and are presumably his best trained representatives. Would it not seem to you that they probably had a handle on what was important to Jesus. We find them laying down their lives for others. They are sacrificing many of the pleasures of life so that they can accomplish the priorities of Jesus. I am not saying that you need to dress in sack cloth and ashes or move to a box under the bridge, I am saying that we should care about those who are suffering. That care should be more than agreeing that something should be done to help. We should be finding ways that we can make a difference.

There are days when after ministering to street people that it is hard for me to sleep because I know I am in a warm bed and they are under the bridge in the cold. I am surrounded by a sea of needy people, I have to pray Lord what do you want me to do because I can't do it all. Sometimes it is simple kindness, or to listen and encourage. Sometimes I work in the kitchen serving a meal, sometimes I sit at the tables and visit with people. Sometimes I go home because I'm tired and that ok too. Sometimes it is to appeal to my Christian brothers and sisters and asking Will You Help!

My family is not rich, we struggle to pay the bills each month. I don't have a big house but I have made room on my couch for the night for homeless friends who missed getting into the shelter or who's dog got hit by a car and they were beside them self with grief.  Trust me I try to be very wise and discerning about who I bring home. I realize that one of my assets my couch. So I try to use it to bless others from time to time. If I can help - so can you.

Here's the standard that I try to live by:
I call it the sheep and the goat standard. I want to be a sheep. So heres the things sheep should be doing. Its not that we should not have good things, it is really more that if we do we should be a channel through which blessings flow to those who are in need. Here's Matthew 25 and what Jesus says to the sheep.

³⁴ “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 

³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me,  I was sick and you looked after me,  I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

³⁷ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

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.’

A lady who spent the night on our couch recently, got into her own place. She needed a table, I had an extra one in my garage. What should I do? It's really a no brainer - give her the table.

Isaiah 58:10

and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.

 

What is true religion or how true faith in God should be manifest in our lives?

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

Widows and orphans at the time this verse was spoken were the lowest of the low. They could own no land, and they were dependent on men of their family to provide for them. If they had no men in their family they had no real way to support themselves. Orphans were even lower they did not even have a mother to care for and comfort them. 

Being a good Christian is more than going to church or attending a mid week bible study and talking about faith. True Christianity is taking those things we have discovered in the Word and putting them to practice. It's not all big things sometimes its taking a bag of wet clothes home and washing them for someone who slept under the bridge because everything they owned was wet. 

I am not saying that everyone should be a missionary or that everyone is called to work in inner cities with the poor and homeless. I do think we are all called to care and to help in some way. 

 

Luke 3:11 John answered, "The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same."

 

Churches or people who have a lot should be helping those who have little 

and are reaching people with very little.  There are always people who are less fortunate than us even if we are homeless and living on the streets.

 

 Will You Give A Financial Love Gift to help?

We could do so much more if you would partner with us?

There are two places on our web site http://www.fccspokane.org/ 

where you can give an online donation. 

1. If you want to help support a church for the homeless and poor pull down the "About" tab an at the bottom you will find Tithes and Offerings and that will take you to a paypal donation page.

2. If you would like to help pay to feed the homeless a hot meal each week you would use the "Streetwise" tab and donate though paypal to Streetwise.

                                               Thanks, Margot