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| PEOPLE > things |
We know, dear
brothers and sisters, that God loves you and has chosen you to be his own
people.
We have all kinds of
resources at our disposal. Walk into a library or any of our homes, and
there are all kinds of books to read. Search the internet, and you find
endless information, useful and useless. Go to a gas station, and you can
buy fuel till all your money is gone. Go to the store, and on isle after
isle there are items to feed, clothe, clean and do all kinds of thousands of
things. Yet none of those are not our greatest resources.
Our church has become
known as a church that helps and encourages people. As we interact with
people we know and many we don't, it is tough to see the huge needs, yet the
most difficult thing we deal with are hurt relationships. Unless you are
a hermit, you have to deal with people every day. Family, friends,
co-workers, neighbors and others cross our path every day.
Our greatest resource is
people. I have to be careful to not get tied up in details and miss
working with what is most important, people. Our lives are complicated by
the stuff we have or the bank accounts we try to manage. But it is people
that make our lives much richer. It is those people that God has
connected us with that will talk us through the tough times of life as well as
celebrate with us when things are good.
People are the most
important resource in our world. God didn't send his son to die for
stuff. Jesus died for people. If we are not careful, we will allow
other things to get in the way of our loving people.
In fact, one of the things
that I am most excited about is the work we get to do that will help the broken
people that we encounter. We have been and will continue sharing items people
need. We have been blessed with recourses help people, but one concern
that I have for us and for every church and ministry is that we need to be
careful where we spend our resources.
If people are our greatest
resource and the most important thing we deal with, then the majority of our
resources need to be used to build people and not buildings and not in
accumulating stuff. Do you agree? This is my heart. God has called us into a relationship with
Him. He has called us to serve others. Our calling is to make a
difference in the lives of people we meet. Yet if we don't have
resources, we can't help people.
This can even spin over
into the area of emotional resources. If I spend all my time managing
stuff, I have nothing left to give my family, my church and the people I get to
meet.
What do you believe is the
greatest resource in your life? How will
you adjust that resource to agree with what God says is the greatest resource
of all? I have to ask myself those
questions often.
We need to position
ourselves to be able impact more people for Jesus. Further, we must place
ourselves where we can meet God more often. I believe the only way to do
that is to value our most important resource, people.
The
man answered, "'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all
your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.' And, 'Love your neighbor as
yourself.'"
NOTE: much of this post first appeared on my blog in January
of 2011.
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