Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Perseverance”
Our Bible verse for today: “If anyone has this world’s goods and sees his brother in need but closes his eyes to him – how can God’s love reside in him? 1 John 3:7 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “We have been blessed so we can be a blessing.”
As I write this I am knee-deep in planning two mission trips, one for our church to the coal-mining region of northeastern Kentucky and the other for CERT International to the Andes Mountains in Peru. In Kentucky we work with a very small church which has a heart for ministering to some of the most impoverished people in that region of Appalachia. In Peru we work with a Peruvian missionary pastor who has made it his life’s work to minister to the Quechuan Indians who live in remote villages in the mountains north of Cusco.
What’s interesting to me is that we sometimes receive almost identical criticism from American Christians for our work in each of those places. It goes like this, “Why do you go so far away to help people over there (Kentucky and Peru), when we have needy people right here?” The implication is that we should just stay home (in Cumberland County, TN, and in the USA) and do all of our charitable work here, and let those people in other places take care of themselves.
Yes, Cumberland County, TN does have its share of poor people, but not like in Hazard County, KY – the need is much greater there. As a church we do minister to our own community first, but we don’t stop here. Also, here in our county there are a large number of big churches, and food banks, and relief agencies, and rescue missions, all focusing large amounts of resources to help the poor in our community. Hazard County, KY has almost none of those resources. The people in our partner church are every bit as poor as the people in their community who they’re trying to help. When we bring a big load of supplies up to them, it makes a world of difference – a much bigger difference than it would make here in our own county.
And with respect to our standard of living here in the USA compared to that of remote villages in Peru, let me quote author David Platt in his new book “Counter Culture”, “By any measure, we are the richest people ever to walk on planet Earth … We need to open our eyes to the reality that when most of the people in the world hear the word “rich”, they picture us. Indeed, average, ordinary, middle-class, working Americans are an extremely wealthy aristocracy in a world surrounded by billions of extremely poor neighbors.”
And even though we are the wealthiest people on the planet to begin with, we then direct more than 80% of our charity inward on our own society. We, the richest society in the world, send less than 20% of our charity to places like the Andes Mountains in Peru. Instead we spend almost all of our charitable dollars on ourselves.
My point in all of this is that as followers of Jesus Christ we have to identify the neediest of the needy, and then persevere in helping them as we can. By ourselves we can’t meet all the needs of all the people. But we can make a meaningful difference in the lives of some. And that’s enough.
The people of God have been tasked by God to engage in physical ministry to take care of the poor and destitute. It’s not easy; it does require sacrifice; and we will need to persevere.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 
Amen Brother!