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Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Demonstrating God's Love in Africa

I'm sure we are all familiar with the Bible verse John 13:35 which states that people will know we are Christians by our love. I have always liked this scripture. According to Jesus, when we look to know who people are by "their fruit" the ruler that we should be using is that of love. Amazing! The Bible does not say that people will know who we are by if or which Church we attend, what type of people we hang around, how much money we have, or who are parents are. People will know that we are disciples of Jesus by the way that we love one another. If you claim to be a follower of Christ but display anger, hate, and selfish ambition towards other people..... Well I'm sorry, but your not following Christ. Because that's not what he did. Jesus loved people. The reason for that is because Jesus is so filled with love, that if were loving our enemies and blessing those that curse us, then we must belong to Christ. If you love, you are born of God according to 1 John.

My wife and I have had a desire to come and be missionaries in Africa for a long time. We have a heart and love for the people here. My wife and I came to work at an Orphanage called "Children With Hope." But what was our agenda? Convert people? Convince people that we're good Christians? Try to please God? just go on a long safari and stare at monkeys?... The reason that we came was simply because we wanted to display the love of Jesus over here in Africa. We wanted to love people.

As Christians we want to see people come to faith in Jesus. We want to see people transformed by obedience to God. But everything we do should be out of simple love. Our agenda, motive, and intent is to love.

The reason we chose to be a part of "Children With Hope" is because it gives us an opportunity to demonstrate God's love. We adopt abandoned orphans and take care of them as our own sons and daughters. This is the same heart that the father has towards us. We are able to be a light in the community. Throughout the old and new testament we see that God has incredible love for the widows, orphans, poor, broken, and lost people. We want to cover these people with the transforming love of God. One thing I love about Jesus is the people that he ministered to. He truly showed no favoritism. He opened his arms open to all. I want to be like that.

Jesus didn't love people to get something in return. He wasn't trying to earn money or anything like that. He was showing you and me how to live. Love is the way. I pray that you begin to manifest this in your life. Lets lay down our selfish ambition, pick up our cross, and follow the way of love! No agenda... just love!

Be blessed!

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