November 28, 2024

II Thessalonians 3.13 (NIV)
Never tire of doing what is right. [alt. translation: Be not weary in well-doing.]

The character of our Savior is compassion.*

Our church used to have a small food pantry. When I worked in the church office, I was blessed to help distribute the food occasionally. Some of our “clients” took advantage of us (read: abused our generosity). I watched from the window as one man was leaving with the supplies we had just given him. He drank the whole, family-size bottle of juice; met up with another man and gave him a few of the items; then left everything else under a tree in the parking lot.  Makes you weary of well-doing . . .

But then there was the woman who looked in her bags, expecting only food, and exclaimed, “Toilet paper! Oh, thank you! I’ve been praying about this because I didn’t have enough money to buy toilet paper and food!” At first, this made me smile, happy to be able to help someone in need, but suddenly (after she had left) I burst into tears as I realized just how much our God cares about the details of our lives.

Yes, there are people who will take advantage of us; people who “work the system;” who are unappreciative. But better to help 100 who don’t deserve it than to “pass by one who is a real object of charity.”*  

Not everyone in the church at Thessalonica was doing what he or she should be doing. And some were using the idleness of others as an excuse for their own lack of charity. But we follow the example of Jesus who fed the hungry and healed the sick. “Not some of [the] . . . sick. Not the righteous among the sick. Not the deserving among the sick. But ‘the sick.’”*

While works do not justify us, they do identify us.*