Ashish Joy

There’s a curi­ous pas­sage I want us turn to, as we pre­pare for wor­ship. With the focus that has been on head, heart, and hands,¹ I wanted to turn our atten­tion to the words of Jesus:

Jesus went through all the towns and vil­lages, teach­ing in their syn­a­gogues, preach­ing the good news of the king­dom and heal­ing every dis­ease and sick­ness. When he saw the crowds, he had com­pas­sion on them, because they were harassed and help­less, like sheep with­out a shep­herd. Then he said to his dis­ci­ples, “The har­vest is plen­ti­ful but the work­ers are few. Ask the Lord of the har­vest, there­fore, to send out work­ers into his har­vest field.”
Matthew 9:35-38 NIV

As Jesus went through the towns and syn­a­gogues of Judea, He saw the hurt­ing and the needy. He saw the tax col­lec­tor who was steal­ing money from the under­priv­i­leged. He saw the orphans who ran the streets with no fam­ily, as they begged for food. He saw the leper colonies, where the lep­ers stayed out of sight and out of mind. He saw the pain of peo­ple who were under the oppres­sive author­i­ties of their day, in the Herods, the Roman mag­is­trates, and Rome’s Cae­sar. In Christ’s redemp­tive eyes, He saw through a lens; a lens called com­pas­sion, where sin and suf­fer­ing had taken its toll on people.

As we look to our exam­ple in Jesus…let’s ask our­selves these questions…

How much do we sor­row over a sin­ful and hell-bound world?
How hard do our hearts beat know­ing that a co-worker is on their way to hell?
How much do we cry over a fam­ily mem­ber who walked away from God?

See, before we can be labor­ers, we have to actu­ally care. We have to actu­ally want to help peo­ple and see them expe­ri­ence God’s best. We have to actu­ally come to a place in our hearts where we actu­ally care.

Tomor­row, we have an oppor­tu­nity to care. As a stu­dent body, we have the priv­i­lege to serve our com­mu­nity. Let’s look with eyes of com­pas­sion as we move for­ward tomor­row. Whether we’re help­ing a widow and her fam­ily, or feed­ing a home­less per­son; whether we get to see a child expe­ri­ence the love of God through a car­ni­val, or as we min­is­ter to a lost soul who’s given up all hope…let’s never for­get, that a bro­ken world needs the love and peace of God. Let us be Christ’s hands and feet in our communities.

As we engage with the world around us, may our com­pas­sion and care drive us to action. May our hands embrace cold hands in love and care. May our words offer hope and life to the hope­less and life­less. May we look upon the world through the eyes of Christ.

May Christ’s love grow in us and work through us. May we never just pay lip ser­vice to Christ’s mis­sion and call, but may Christ be incar­nated in our lives.

I pray what we do tomor­row in reach­ing out, will merely be our entrance to a real­ity of lov­ing the world to heaven.

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. 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, 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.’
Matthew 25:34-36 NIV

As we enter into wor­ship today, let us find God’s heart…and may our hearts beat to the rhythm of His heart.

Let’s all stand and pray…