Love is Indespensable

One of the reasons we are going to India for the mission trip is to show love to the orphans. These children have seen very little affection as in their culture they are considered the untouchables. They are the lowest of the social caste in India. We are also going to an HIV orphanage, the children there know even less about love. The people that run these orphanages show the children love however to receive it from outsiders is something special to children who know so little about it. God speaks to us about love in 1 Corinthians 13 (NIV):

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kinds, It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 

Without love all the things we do for the Lord are nothing. People do not like to listen to a person that is filled with hate or who just barely tolerates others. But if a person shows love, then people actually stop and listen and considered what they are saying, more so then someone who does not. As we go to India we will go not filled with hurt, anger, disappointment, doubt or any other thing that is not of the Lord. But we will go filled with, love, faith, hope and compassion. We will go with the word of God, the love of God and the fruits of the Spirit. 

Faith of Friends

I've talked a lot on this blog about faith, one might think okay one post is enough you can stop now. However faith is so huge and so important that I am compelled to continue. I told you last month that I would discuss faith as found in the story of Jesus healing a cripple in Capernaum. Now I have read both accounts in Luke and Mark, there isn't much deviation in them, but I will use Mark's account.

We find it in Mark 2: 1-12 (NIV)

A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, "Son, your sins are forgiven." Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, "Get up, take your mat and walk'? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins." So he said to the man, "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"

I want you to picture this. Christ is sitting in a house surrounded by people, wanting to be healed, spoken to, taught, or just to be in his presence. There are so many people that it is crowded inside, standing room only. Plus throngs of people outside trying to get in. Then men came carrying their friend who was paralyzed. Four of them carried him, but more friends were there. They can not get through this mass of people. However they have Faith that if they can get their friend to Jesus he will heal him. So, they risk climbing on top of this house, taking their cripple friend up with them. Breaking into the roof of someone else's home and lowering their friend down.

Now picture the people on the inside of this house, skeptics as we see (they do not like that Jesus told the man his sins are forgiven) but then you also have the home owner. Probably not to happy with these guys putting a hole in his roof.

Yet, Jesus sees the Faith, not of the paralyzed man, but of his friends. The paralyzed mans friends had Faith that Christ would heal him. They had Faith that breaking through the roof would be worth it because Christ would heal their friend.  I have talked about us having Faith and moving mountains because of it. But here we see the Faith of friends. If our Faith alone can move mountains we can move an entire world with the Faith of our friends added to it.

In February, I will take my Faith to India to move mountains. Some friends from Life Church are going with me and with their Faith we will move even more mountains. With the combined Faith of all of my friends, we can move the world. That is what this passage tells me. That I need the Faith in my Lord and Savior that he will provide.