Our theme for this month: “Taking care of each other”
Our Bible verse for today: “One of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet and begged him earnestly, ‘My little daughter is dying. Come and lay your hands on her so that she can get well and live.’ So Jesus went with him …”
Mark 5:23-23 (CSB)
Our thought for today: “Make it personal.”
Jesus’ ministry to people was almost always direct, personal, face-to-face, and hands-on. Although He was God and He could therefore have ministered to people from a distance with a simple thought, or by just speaking a word from afar without ever having any direct contact with them, most of the time He didn’t do it that way. He didn’t simply mail them a miracle. Instead He interacted with people face-to-face, one-on-one. He visited in their homes, He talked to them, He touched them, He ate meals with them, and He had a deeply personal relationship with individual people.
The idea that we need to be with people in order to take care of them seems like a no-brainer. But in truth it can often seem easier and safer and more appealing to simply sit comfortably inside our little Baptist forts and just send prayers, or to write checks and send them off in the mail, rather than dealing directly with actual people.
At Oak Hill Baptist Church we make it a point to make it personal. First, within the church, we get involved in each other’s lives. If a brother or sister is in need or is hurting and struggling in any way, we’re there for them – in person.
But also, as a group, we get up out of our pews, leave the building, go out into the world, and have personal, one-on-one, face-to-face contact with the people living at the Bread of Life Rescue Mission in our town; and the girls who live in the Tennessee Baptist Children’s Home in the next county; and with the children at the Lighthouse Christian Camp; and we go to the coal-mining region of eastern Kentucky to work side-by-side with our partners at New Beginnings Church in Hi Hat, KY; and we send mission teams to the El Arca Children’s Home in the Amazon Jungle in Peru, and to the Grace International orphanage in Haiti.
The point is that when it came to taking care of people Jesus made it personal – so we need to make it personal too. There are people right now in your town, in your neighborhood, at your place of work, or perhaps even in your church, who would be blessed by having a personal, one-on-one, face-to-face encounter with you today.
I encourage you to on out there and make it personal!
Oak Hill Baptist Church