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One of the biggest problems of the organized church today is the stress on believing and the lack of stress on doing. What we do speaks so loud people do not hear what we say. I remember when I joined a church. We had “orientation” and the emphasis was on beliefs. No talk whatsoever about how Christians should live out those beliefs. They want to tune up your head. It is often nothing but control behavior. Even the sermons and responsive readings are designed to tell us what to believe. They are so much more anxious to own our mind than to help us find specific paths of ministry. Jesus didn’t say, “In that day people will come to me and say ‘we believed John 3:16 and the Apostles Creed’ and I will say, ‘Enter into the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’” No, He did not say that. He said, “When I was hungry, you gave me meat. When I was thirsty, you gave me water. When I was a stranger, you took me in. When I was sick, you visited me. When I was in prison, you came to me. Therefore (meaning because of this), thou good and faithful servant, enter into the Kingdom.” What would it mean to a hungry man for you to say, “I cannot bring you a bite to eat but I can quote John 3:16 to you and save you from hell.” He is already in a hell – the hell of hunger. What would it mean to say to a man whose tongue is swollen from thirst to say, “I can’t bring you a drop of water but I can save you from hell.” He is already in the hell of a parched, split, swollen tongue. He doesn’t care about all that theology you’re toting around in you head. He doesn’t need a parrot. He needs a human who cares. He needs someone who is warm with the love of God. When a man is in the hospital or a prison, it won’t do him much good to hand him a gospel tract urging him to flee from the wrath of God. He needs someone to sit down and listen to him and talk with him, friend to friend. He needs someone willing to hold his hand and pray with him. Someone who asks, “Is there anything I can do?” I have a friend whose beliefs would not all sit well with someone who believes the commas and periods of the Bible are the word of God. But I cried with him one day when he told me a little girl in a far-away land had died. He had been sending her $15 a month for years. I thought of the words of Jesus: “Inasmuch as you have done it to the least, you have done it to me.” I’m sick of people who monitor the beliefs of everyone around them but have no personal ministry. I am weary of people who want me to believe in hell more than they want to relieve the personal hells of people all around them. People who want me to be baptized in a certain way more than to help another find the well inside that springs up into everlasting life. When I was county executive, a minister changed my life with a simple note he left on my desk. He said, “I just dropped by to tell you I am praying for you in your ministry here at the courthouse.” For heaven’s sake, here is a man telling a politician his work is a ministry! Hasn’t he heard that “all politicians are crooks"? It gave me a totally new attitude toward my job. No one had ever said my work was a ministry. I have come to see that people don’t really believe what they say they believe if they do not minister to others on and off the job.
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