Portions from "Living as If People Mattered"

These paragraphs are taken from “Living as If People Mattered,” a chapter in The Micah Mandate by George Grant.

 

Those of us who have received the compassion of the Lord on High are to demonstrate tenderness in kind to all those around us. This is precisely the lesson Jesus was driving at in the parable of the unmerciful slave (Matthew 18:23-35).

                The moral of the parable is clear. The needy around us are living symbols of our own former helplessness and privation. We are therefore to be living symbols of God’s justice, mercy, and compassion. We are to do as He has done. God has set the pattern by His gracious working in our lives. We are to follow that pattern by serving others in the power of the indwelling Spirit.

                In other words, the Gospel calls us to live daily as if people really matter. It calls us to live lives of selfless concern. We are to pay attention to the needs of others. In both word and deed, in both thought and action we are to weave ordinary kindness into the very fabric of our lives.

                But this kind of ingrained mercy goes far beyond mere politeness. We are to demonstrate concern for the poor. We are to show pity toward the weak. We are to rescue the afflicted from violence. We are to familiarize ourselves with the case of the helpless, give of our wealth, and share of our sustenance. We are to put on “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (Colossians 3:12). We are to take up “the case of the stranger” (Job 29:16). We are to love our neighbors as ourselves (Mark 12:31) and “rescue those being led away to death” (Proverbs 24:11-12).

                According to the Scriptures, this kind of comprehensive servanthood emphasis is, in fact, a primary indication of the authenticity of our faith: “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” (James 1:27).

                We are called to do “righteousness and justice” (Genesis 18:19 NASB). WE are to be ministers of God’s peace, instruments of His love, and ambassadors of His kingdom. We are to care for the helpless, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the prisoner, and protect the innocent. We are to live lives of merciful service.

                Grave societal dilemmas that have always busied the church before—like defending the sanctity of life, caring for the aged, and protecting the helpless—have mentally and practically separated from our other “spiritual” responsibilities. They have been relegated to the status of “issues,” even declared “political” and put on the other side of the fence from us in “the separation of church and state.”

                From a biblical perspective, though, these things are not “issues”; they cannot be separated from our tasks….They are central to our purpose and calling in the world.

                In fact, most of the church’s greatest heroes are those who willingly gave the best of their lives to the less fortunate. Service was their hallmark. Mercy was their emblem.

                                                                                                                                                                                         

                I was challenged when I read this, to open my heart to those around me. As Christ added the poor and rejected, so are we to sacrifice our wants for the aid of the hurting.

                Charles Spurgeon said, “God’s intent in endowing any person with more substance than he needs is that he may have the pleasurable office, or rather the delightful privilege, of relieving want and woe. Alas, how many there are who consider that store which God has put into their hands on purpose for the poor and needy, to be only so much provision for their excessive luxury, a luxury which pampers them but yields them neither benefit nor pleasure.”