As I am laying the ground work for launching a church, the Lord keeps focusing me on those outside the church and His heart for them. It is our desire to be a people preoccupied with the building of the Kingdom of God. At the heart of the Kingdom of God is the desire to reconcile men to God, a heart of compassion grieving for the destruction that sin causes. Jesus was criticized for being a friend of sinners in Matthew chapter 9. When I read this account I am struck with Jesus’ response. 'I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’ The word used for compassion in the Greek is ‘eleos’ which means ‘kindness or good will toward the miserable and the afflicted, joined with a desire to help them.’ Another time a dumb man, demon-possessed, was brought to Him. Jesus moved with compassion cast the demon out and the dumb man spoke. Jesus motivated by compassion, or good will toward the miserable and the afflicted, reached out to help him. The Pharisees were not pleased. Their hearts were hardened to the afflicted. Their theology believed that bad things happened to those who fell short. In their life with God they worked so hard and became satisfied with their own progress that they lost sight of the fathers heart. How sad, an afflicted man spoke and they were distressed.
Many times we tend to recoil from the afflicted of this world, yet Jesus commands his people to pray and get involved. Jesus said, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest." I am of the personal opinion that much of the western church looks at those outside of the faith with same attitude as the Pharisees. The more we understand the grace of God the more we will understand that Jesus reached out to us while we were, as Paul would write “God’s enemy”. As we get a hold of how broken we were (and may I suggest we still are) it should motivate us to spread the good news of how God made a way for us. The religious spirit on the other hand, is one that measures it self against the righteousness of other men. Therefore it will always be at odds with grace and redemption. The religious spirit always grades on the curve, it builds it self up at the expense of those who are sinners and the afflicted, the very ones that God cares so passionately about.
Reaching our world is not dependent upon our finances of our resources but upon our faith in God. When we embrace the heart of Christ that has been revealed by His graciousness to us the values of the Kingdom become our own, and we stretch to fill the calling given to us
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