Least part 2
"And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (Matthew 25:40). This is one of my favorite truths out of all the parables that Jesus taught. Whatever we do to the least... we do unto the Lord. There is absolutely no separation between us and God. And, really, how could there be? He lives in us. This is the same truth that Jesus gave to Paul (then Saul) in Acts 9:4-5. Paul was persecuting Christians... "And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." You mess with God's people and you're messing with God Himself. And just to clarify, I believe we are ALL God's people. Some of us know it and some of us don't. That's the only difference. And, really, that's what Jesus was saying in Matthew chapter 25. Whatever we do to the LEAST we do unto Him. That word, "least," is number 1646 in Strong's Greek Concordance and it means, "least (in size, amount, dignity, etc.): - least, very little (small), smallest." Whatever you do to the most insignificant person you know... you do unto the Lord. Now let me stop right here for a second. Because I understand the idea that some lives are bigger than others. Some people have more impact than others. Presidents, for example, have a pretty big impact. But having said that... I don't believe anyone is insignificant. I believe we were all fearfully and wonderfully made. We all have a purpose--and as simply as I can put it that purpose is to be loved and to love one another with that love--and we can all reach different people in different ways. But I think the point here is that true love is about giving and not getting. It's about giving to someone who you know you can't get anything from. Let me say it like this, "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). See, God didn't die for us because of what you could get FROM us. We were sinners. We were running from Him because we thought He was mad at us. We didn't have anything to give Him. He died for us because of what WE could get from HIM. And what His death did was it gave us a death. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. Then when Jesus died, we died. DEATH died. So that life (abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life) could live. So that we could live in Him as He lives in and through and as us. What am I saying? That HUMANITY was the least of Jesus' brethren, and HE is the One who loved us. So in the same manner, we are now equipped and empowered to love each other in the same manner. Guys, we love God by loving each other. Whatever we do to the least... we do unto Him. If you want to love God you have to love people. Because that's HOW you love God. We have this misguided idea where we have to serve God, even if it's at the expense of people. But God didn't come to be served. He came to serve. He didn't come so that we could take care of Him. He came to take care of us. And He takes care of us when we take care of each other!