Matthew 25 and Haiti

Chris Brauns:

If God is touching your heart about Haiti, but, you’re not quite sure how to respond, here’s a devotional exercise you could do in the next few days.

1. Read Matthew 25 aloud.  It is a good thing to force yourself to slow down and hear a segment of God’s Word.
2. Notice that there are three segments:
1. The parable of the Ten Virgins
2. The parable of the Talents
3. The final judgment
3. Reflect on the significance of each of the three sections.  Do you agree with these summary statements?
1. Matthew 25:1-13: Only foolish people are not prepared when Christ comes back.  And, we can be sure that the Master will return when many are not ready – - at which time it will be too late.  Oh, can you say you are ready, brother? 
2. Readiness looks like aggressively leveraging what God has entrusted to us, not playing it safe.  Matthew 25:14-30: Wise people aggressively multiply the resources entrusted to them.  Christians are not called to bury their savings in a 401K (which doesn’t turn out to be so safe after all) or to put our stuff in a safety deposit box of one kind or another. We are to shrewdly dream about the ways that we can shine the light of the Gospel across the street and around the world (see also Luke 16:8-9).
3. In particular, readiness means being mobilized to help hurting people.  Those who decline to help the hurting should fear for their souls.  Matthew 25:31-46: To ignore the least of these is to ignore Jesus.  Our Lord said is that if we have no heart for the “naked,” then we have no heart for him – - indeed, those who think they are His, but bear no fruit of compassion – - these have a Hell of a shock in front of them (Matt 25:46).  Deeds of compassion don’t save us; but, the saved feature deeds of compassion.  2 Corinthians 13:5.

On a corporate level, if a local church is just a local church; then it may one day have a hell of a shock; if a group of believers look only inwardly, only locally, then they have reason to question if they are the real deal or not.

Rather, let us see Christ when he is naked.