One of my favorite passages of
the Scripture is found in Romans 5. Christ arrived right on time to make this happen. He did
not, and does not, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this
sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get
ourselves ready. Further, even if we had not been so weak, we would not have
known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth
dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to
selfless sacrifice. God, however, put his love on the line for us by offering
his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him. Romans 5:8The Message
(MSG)
I believe that the Good News of Jesus Christ is always
directed to those are in need, to those who are hurting: the sick, the hungry, the poor, the weak,
those whose lives are all messed up or screwed up. Phillips Brooks, in his Lectures on Preaching, 1877,
wrote a line that I really like: "The
preacher's/ the person’s instinct is to feel instantly, how Christ and human
need belong together." Christ and human
need belong together. Christ connects to
the need of the person we are talking to. In
the world of suffering Christ and human need belong together. To come alongside those who are lost, those
who suffer, those who are under the bondage of the enemy is to know what it
means to connect the love of Christ to their human need. In so doing we become, in the words of Henri Nouwen,
"wounded healers".
The first disciples always related Christ to the
human need of their friends around them:
blindness, leprosy, death, whatever it was. So it is with us two thousand years later, as
we always relate Christ to the deepest needs of the person we encounter in daily
life situations. When we seek the Lord
to bless others He gives His heart and His mind. He does not give us a mind
for cynicism, and criticism., People
are in their life situation and there is nothing that can be done. Only Christ the power to transcend the situation.
He has the power to redeem our situations. He does not call us to
offer condemnation, but we are called to
offer Christ. Christ Comes as the Wonderful Counselor to those life
situations. He brings about wellness and healing and He restores and makes all
things new.
In Christ,
Brown.
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