Sunday 4 Nov 2012

Sunday Reading: Luke 16:19-25

Key Verse: Luke 16:25
25  But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

Devotion:
I have often read this passage and skimmed over things to look into the reactions of the rich man when he gets to realise that the poor man is in heaven and he is not; but sometimes we should not just take things for what we think about first of all, but to rather look a bit deeper into what Christ was actually saying. If we look at the words that He used to describe the rich man we do not see anything negative – though we may wish to make negative comments because the poor man wishes to eat of the crumbs from the rich man’s table.

This is not just a story about a rich man who had everything apart from Christ and not just about a poor man who knew Christ; this is more a story about the way that people see others. It is a sad reflection on society today that we have a class society in which people are graded by how much they earn and society then gives them privileges based on that income. This is certainly not what God does because He looks on the inside of each person instead of the outside.

The rich man does not have any record that He knew Christ otherwise he would have expressed Christian love toward the poor man. Christian love should never be about positions in society or about how much people earn but rather about that inner love that God has given us toward others. I am so very thankful that I know a broad range of people and have learned, with Christ’s help, to love people for who they are rather than their position in society. I was not always like this because I grew up in a very different country where things were certainly not equal between people.

Christ showed His love toward everyone in many unique ways, just one of those ways being that He healed everyone that came to Him for healing. Now whilst we would like to think that everyone that got healed then turned their lives round to serve God in any way they could, we know this is just not the case. Take the case of the ten lepers who were healed – we only hear of one of then actually thanking Christ, never mind doing anything for Him! God wants us to show our love toward others, not just to the select few we think deserve it!

Points to Ponder:
Do you limit your good works toward your friends only?

Where would we be is Christ required you to be a friend first of all?