It’s so good to see everybody. Blessings upon you, wherever you may be, all of my Cornerstone family and friends, not only in other parts of the country but other parts of the world. I’m just so thankful we can be here together, share this time, walk through this time, and make this journey. These are challenging times right now, I know that. They’re not easy.

I do long for the day when we’ll actually be able to come together again, gathered as people gathered in presence, which is a little different than what we’re doing right now online. I just want to remind everybody that we’re not going to rush, we’re going to keep this going online. Sundays are just going to be part of our church life for a long time, even when we start to regather. We’re planning and preparing for that. We’re praying for that, we’re anticipating it, it’ll start modestly. When that time comes, there’ll be a journey that we’ll all make together. It will run this same track for a long time.

Of course, there’re a lot of other things going on in our world and in our nation right now. Different types of pain, division, and discussions are taking place. We’ve had to sit with a lot of things. I’ve heard from so many of you. I’ve talked a lot about what it means to just sit and hear pain. We’ve been trying to understand the impact of racism, and what a devastating scene that is, when it’s just allowed to run rampant at the same time.

I’m trying to really hear everybody’s heart on just what they need. I’ve realized everybody’s coming at these things from different directions, and different ones are troubled for different reasons. I’m trying to be both encouraging and supportive of our African American community inside of our church, our brothers and sisters in Christ, who I love, and also care for the parts of our church that are connected to the law enforcement community and the unique feelings that they have right now. The pain they’re feeling. There’re a lot of things that we’re trying to balance out, just understand and support the lesson of the peacemakers.

When we say that, we’re not disregarding justice and righteousness. We’re just saying that we want to be more about solving things or making things better. Not just saying, here’s what we’re all against. But let’s talk and pray about how our church can have a few initiatives that we can do, that have more long-term impact. Even after certain things have died down, we can still continue to be doers of good. We’re trying to explore prayerfully what that could look like, and sit with that in the days ahead. How we can make a positive difference for longer-term change and improvement.

The message that I’m about to share is the Good Samaritan. The second piece of what we started with last week couldn’t be, in my opinion, a better teaching for us to be with because so much of it had to do with how Jesus taught us how we’re supposed to love. Love the other, love our brother, be a neighbor, all of these things, what love does, that’s what we’re going to zero in on, what love does, how it shows up.

Just keep your hearts open. Let’s keep our hearts open to what the Lord might want to say to us specifically. The principles that I’m going to explore are going to be more general, they’re not so much going to be directly connected to the issues that are specifically going on in the culture. They’re more principles that we can use to examine our own hearts. They’re designed to encourage, strengthen, and be more expansive. You keep that in mind. Keep the purpose in mind. There’s a blessing in this because the word that Jesus gave us is a word that is very relevant for where we are right now.

I’m going to just invite us into that place. In the coming weeks, we’re going to hear from other teachers. I’m going to just do the front and the back ends, share and update us, and pray and introduce when we have a few other teachers sharing the teaching. For me, this is a special moment because it’s an opportunity to explore a passage, a teaching of Jesus that I just absolutely love. Let’s set our heartbeat open and soft, even now Lord, we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

 

Our series is engage. It’s about putting our faith in the play. It’s about our faith showing up. It’s about more than words but also how we live. It’s about the everydayness of our life and how we live out this faith of ours. The love that we say we have for Jesus, how does it show up? How does it show up in our relationships? The example we started last week, the parable of the Good Samaritan, last week we set it up and we spent some time with it. I would like to finish it, this little two-piece here.

One of the things people ask me every now and then is, “Hey, what’s your favorite parable?” I always say, “Oh, my favorite parable, it’s the parable of the prodigal son.” But if I was picking the second one, it would be this one. The parable of the Good Samaritan. I love this story. I think it is filled with life. I never walk away from it not feeling a little bit moved and humbled that somehow God’s calling me to be more like him, and challenging maybe selfishness.

Lord, I ask that you would speak to us through this word, that you would allow it to be alive in us, and that you would instruct us in it. I ask for this blessing, even now over what we’re about to share, over all of you.

I’m going to read through Luke: 10, passage, I’m not going to spend a lot of time resetting it. I did that last week, but I want to just move through it and then get to the story itself. Then sit with it in a way that I think will help equip us to love better.

Verse 25, “Behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, put Jesus to the test.” One of the versions says, “A lawyer, a scribe, he asked Jesus a question,” a question that was designed, I think to maybe catch Jesus in some way, or at least to put Jesus on the spot. He said, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life, life and its fullest? What is your understanding of the most significant thing in life?”

Jesus said to him, “Well, what is written in the law, your scribe? What is your reading of it?” And so he, the lawyer answered, and he said, “Well, you shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your mind, and you shall love and your neighbor as yourself, yes, this is the greatest thing.”

In so doing the lawyer had combined to the great teachings of the Older Testament, this Shabbat, and the command in Leviticus to love your neighbor as yourself. He answered, “Well, he did.” Jesus said as much, in verse 28, “And he said to him, “You have answered rightly, do that, do this and you’ll live.” But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” That sets this up.

Jesus answered, and he said, “Well, there was a certain man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, the road to Jericho, and he fell among the thieves. And they stripped him of his clothing. And they wounded him and they departed, they left him half-dead. And now by chance, a certain priest came down that road and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise, a Levi, when he arrived at the place, came and he looked, and he passed by on the other side. But there was a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, he came where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. And so he went to him and he bandages his wounds and pouring on oil and wine and he set him on his own animal. And he brought him to an inn, and he took care of him. And on the next day, when he’s departed, he took out two denarii. And he gave them to the innkeeper. And he said to him, “Take care of him. And whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.”

Jesus asked, “Which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?” And he said, “The one who showed mercy on him, yes.” Jesus said to him, “Then go and do likewise, my friend.” Now, there are so many places that we can go with this. One of the things that just catch me every time I read it is that phrase, “He fell among the thieves.” This man was on the road to Jericho. And along that road, he got seized by robbers, who beat him and stripped him and left him for dead taking everything he had. He has a picture of a man overwhelmed in his trouble.

Every time I read the phrase that is rendered in this translation among the thieves, that he fell among thieves, that he was overcome by robbers, but he fell among the thieves. It just reminds me, he didn’t plan that day for this to happen. It happened. It’s a reminder to me, at least in part, that we are never far from trouble. I’m not trying to create paranoia. I’m just saying it as it is.

When I think of among the thieves, I always think about the precarious nature of life, and how vulnerable we really are. I think we find out at certain times like we’re living in right now that sometimes we’re not as secure as we think we are. There are times when we actually do fall among the thieves, of course, what I’m talking about here is the problems of life surround us. If we let them, they bind us. I’m talking about the things that fall upon us and leave us half-dead, bloody, beaten, and emotionally broken on the side of a road, so to speak.

Those things can be a combination of things. They could be things that are external predominantly in our lives, a series of things that could happen to us may be health-related, work-related issues that we’re having to deal with situations that emerge, complications that arise, hardships that begin to overtake us. External things can begin to beat us down and they come in waves. They can really be difficult to go through sometimes though, that the harder thing is actually not the external. But actually the internal. The thieves that see us in a different way, the things that have to do with our heart, in our mind, our thoughts, the anxious thoughts and the fears that strike us, that take us down, that literally can weigh us down.

When we have relational pain, we have an internal struggle when we are hurting. We’ve felt deep loss or are grieving, we feel frustrated or damaged, or we find ourselves incapable of breaking free from certain addictive and destructive patterns and ways of being that have been ingrained into us. We feel overwhelmed by our own sense of weakness, frailty, and vulnerability. I don’t know what it is, I just know sometimes that there is such a thing as having stress, or feeling anxious about decisions that need to be made, or conversations that have to happen, where we literally can feel it in our body. The body gives away things, it does it. It’s an amazing instrument that God designed, it tells the truth on us.

I know, I have felt that. I have felt literally the weight of it. That’s one of the best ways I could describe it. Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about. When anxiety hits or stress hits, or you’re just thinking about what you have to deal with, or how you’re feeling, it starts to just create, almost like our body is under the weight of it. It’s like pressure is on us. It’s the only way I know how to describe it, your whole body feels it.

It just got me thinking about how he fell among the thieves. I thought about the thieves that steal our peace, the peace of mind. Jesus wants us to be at peace in our hearts with him and with others. The thieves that we fall among can steal that piece away. It also reminds me of the plight of some of the people who are around us. Sometimes it’s the people that we care about the most, that we know the best, that we feel their pain for they are close to us. When we see them, in a way, fall among the thieves, now that could be, for some of us, it could be our children or for some of us, it could be our parents. It could be people we care deeply about, our siblings, our brothers, sister, someone who we love dearly, and we are seeing them fall among the thieves. We’ve watched them and they are so troubled. They seem overwhelmed by life’s trouble. It affects us, it does.

Whether it’s the hurting of things from inside of us or the hurt that we feel on behalf of another that affects us. The fact of the matter is that this can be us from time to time, walking down the road to Jericho, and all of a sudden we find ourselves among the thieves just being overwhelmed on every side. When we see someone we love being just devastated by life’s troubles. So what are we to do with that? What are we to do with the hurting around us or among us? A lot of times, I talk about what God’s trying to help us get through. However, what about the people we love and care for and the hurt that’s all around us?

I do think this story is about who is a neighbor? That was the question. It’s about relationships, it’s about other people. It’s about how the love of Christ is to show up, connected to other people. It could be people we know very little about, like in this story, or it could be people that are close to us, that we care for deeply. It’s about the other. It really is. I want to sit with this and think about what it means to love like a good Samaritan. I want to take it, just put it into the lens of everyday life and into the lens of our relationships. I want to talk about what love does. I’d like you to think about it with me. Why not? What does love do as Jesus taught us here in this story? What does engaged faith look like when it shows up in love?

Well, one of the things we are told here is that love always sees people with compassion, doesn’t it? It does. Jesus said the Samaritan saw him. Notice that. He saw him and he was moved with compassion. That is such a beautiful word, compassion. I love that word. I love this word. I love words, I always have. But compassion is a beautiful word. The etymology of compassion is Latin, it means co-suffering. The Latin root of the word compassion is pati. It means to suffer. The prefix com means with. So you put them together and it’s to suffer with.

When we have compassion, we feel the pain of others, don’t we? We feel the pain of the other, and our heart is moved. The Good Samaritan was touched with compassion, as Jesus told it. That compassion drove him past his fear. That compassion drove him past his indifference. It probably, I think this was getting at this as well, drove him past his feeling of separation. That somehow he as a Samaritan was not responsible for someone who is not of his people.

Part of what’s happening here is not a coincidence that Jesus uses the Samaritan as his model. Because the Samaritan would have had the same feelings that the Jews of Jesus’s day had. They would have had a sense that you know what, that’s not my responsibility, you don’t mind people, let his people take care of him, that sense of difference.

Whether it was the Samaritan getting past his own fear, his indifference which clearly gripped, those two things grip the priest and the Levi, that’s not even a question. They didn’t have the excuse that the Samaritan had of the fact that there was a disparity of a kind of ethnic social disparity there. If anyone had the excuse to not be engaged, it was the Samaritan, but he didn’t do it. Jesus was intentional about it. It was the Samaritan who saw him and chose to have compassion. That’s another thing that we were reminded of here, isn’t it? That love engages, it’s tender, it’s gentle. It’s Chi. You know what, love does. Love does, love acts. It responds, it moves on that compassion.

It reminds me of something that I read from a book called Love Does by a writer named Bob Goff. And he said that love is never stationary in the end. Love doesn’t just keep thinking about it or keep planning for it. Simply put, love does. It’s worth saying again. You can read this with me if you want. Love is never stationary in the end. Love doesn’t just keep thinking about it or keep planning for it. Simply put, love does. That’s what happens. Love acts, love responds, love engages.

It wasn’t just that the Samaritan saw him. That seeing moved him to compassion. But it wasn’t just that he had compassion, that compassion moved him to action. That’s how it’s supposed to be. But it wasn’t just even that. I hope you notice it. It touched me this way as well. Because the good Samaritan’s love was not only activated and engaged, and it was. He moved on that feeling of suffering with this man. He didn’t just acknowledge it, he felt it. Then he responded to it. But then it was even more than that. It was, and how can I say it? The way Jesus has described it, it was an unrestrained love. It was un-extravagant love. It was a love that went far beyond what anyone would have expected. It was beautiful. It was just beautiful, the way Jesus describes it.

His affection and attention were given with tenderness and care. I read this and I was struck by the tenderness of it, I was, by the tender humility in it. I found myself thinking about the character that I love, from Victor Hugo’s just exceptional story for all time, Les Miserables, and his central character Jean Valjean, who becomes a transformed man because of the love of Christ. How the love of Christ takes this scarred, angry, bitter, hard man who’s been unfairly treated, unjustly imprisoned, bitter with life, and how, because of an act of forgiveness and the love of Christ displayed towards him, breaks his heart, changes his life. Jean Valjean becomes a different man, a man who goes from being hard and bitter to being soft, tender, and caring, a picture of a Christ-like figure. A man truly transformed by the compassion of Christ, becoming himself a vehicle of that compassion.

Hugo had something in his mind, no question about it, about what happens when we truly understand how much we are loved as well. This neighbor to this wounded man, the fact that Jesus said it was a Samaritan. Now again, what we don’t know is, in the story because we’re not told, where these men passing by in the same direction were they leaving Jericho on their way to Jerusalem or were they going in different directions? We know one thing. We know the man who was beaten and half-dead on the road, he had been coming from Jerusalem on the road to Jericho. The fact that Jesus describes him as a Samaritan only would have added to the astonishment of the audience who are no doubt listening with mouths agape and ears attuned to the nuances of the words of Jesus as he described it. They would have marveled also, no question about it. They would have marveled as Jesus described the extravagance of the man’s compassion.

We’re told that he knelt down. He got off his donkey if I can put it that way. That how is how I see it. He got off his donkey and he knelt down. He bound his wounds, he cleaned them with oil and wine, he lifted him up and he placed the man on the animal, and he took him to an in. He brought him to that place with his own arms carrying him, he bought him a room. Remember, it cost two denarii. A denarius at the time of Jesus was considered to be about a common day’s wage. It was a decent amount of money that he put down and he left him there with the innkeeper. Then he said, “What’s more, I’m giving you an open tab. If he needs more to sustain him, I’ll pay for it. I’m good for it. I’ll come back around and you know me, and I’ll take care of it.”

That extravagance of love, is that not an example also of the love of God on display for you and me? I have felt that love. I know that love and I’m humbled by that love, the love of Christ. I know it. It’s the love that not only was displayed because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, but also the love that I still experience on a daily basis. I still and will always need his grace. I will never be so good. It’s just not going to happen, that I don’t need the Lord’s love and tenderness. I need his tender mercies. I do. If I need them, if I need his grace, and his tenderness to work in my life then I cannot live life angry. There’s so much vitriol going around us, isn’t there?

There are so many reasons to be in a place of continual disturbance. There’s bad news everywhere. We see in humanity from one to another. We see evil magnified and heartlessness. We see things that come out of people. It can make us angry. We can get caught up in the anger of the culture. I mentioned the vitriol of the words that are just shared all the time. I think on social media even more so because there’s a subtle enmity behind it. Somehow people feel freer to be more vile and evil, angry. You put it all together, and you get a culture in great disrepair, with hurt and anger everywhere. If we’re not careful, we can get sucked into these offenses. We can start getting ourselves defined by the reaction to injustice. We can start to get enveloped in the negativity.

I’m not saying we are to be a people who are only pollyannish and have our head heads in the sand and are not aware. I don’t think that should be the dominant theme of our life. If it is, we’re making a mistake. The dominant theme of our lives should be the love of Christ in us. It worked through us. This is the tie that should bind us at the deepest level to one another. It’s something that we must choose to allow to happen in our lives. We are not to become characterized by the dominant streams of our culture, but rather we are to walk as peculiar people. Walk as people of light. People of the life that we are to seek- to have our hearts aligned with him and to push aside anything that would pull us away from a place of spiritual equanimity. Not allow disturbance to run rampant inside of our heart. Not to be just overwhelmed by things. Let those things define us.

I think you know what I’m saying. I think that we all need to allow the grace of God and our knowledge of that at work in us to be a motivating factor in the way in which we live out our lives. We are to be people who forgive because we have been forgiven. We’re to be a people who will not allow hate to dominate because we have been affected by the dominant love of Christ at work in us. I just can’t be at peace in a place that is contrary to that. I’ve noted it in my own heart as well. I might try to justify it. I might try to hold on to something that’s an offense. I might try to somehow be at peace with anger that is not being addressed and is beginning to move in a direction that is actually going to be unhelpful. Yet, those two things aren’t compatible.

The love of Christ is almost like we can’t have, there’s no room for both of those things. There’s not really room for the love of Jesus to be the dominant story of our life. Another story of anger, hatred, or resentment. Those two things can’t live together well. They’re not meant to be together in a place like that. Because love is meant to show up and dominate us the love of Christ. I mean that in the best way.

Another thing that love does. Love chooses to act with spontaneity. How do most of our tests come? I can put it this way. When we’re on the road to Jericho, they do. the tests come. When we’re on the journey of life, that’s how I see the road to Jericho. I see it as a metaphor for the journey of life. As we come around the bend, like the man on the road to Jericho coming around the bend, a bend in the road. All of a sudden, we’re confronted by what we did not anticipate. When that moment happens, a choice must be made. He didn’t start out the day, “Oh, I’m going to have this interaction with a man on the side of a road who’s half-dead, and then I’m going to have to make a decision.” He wasn’t thinking that way.

A lot of times when we’re making our way through life, when we’re on the road to Jericho, it’s in these places around the bend, around the turn, where we’re confronted with something that we have to then make a decision. Am I going to engage this or am I going to pass it by? The way I look at it is, you and I, stumble upon life choices. A lot of times those life choices, those decisions on the road to Jericho call us to a point of making a call.

If I can put it this way, they actually create opportunities, relational opportunities, opportunities that come upon us unannounced. That’s why I’m calling it an opportunity because, in these moments, we get to choose to live out our faith. Now those opportunities may emerge in relation to people that we don’t know so well, a stranger. Or they may emerge with people we know very well. People we are in the closest relationship with. When those opportunities emerge on the road to Jericho, we are given a chance to deepen our life with God, or to disconnect it.

In those places, and Jesus is making this point very clear, we must decide if we are willing to be a neighbor. Will we love the way he wants us to love? How will we demonstrate then our love and our care? That’s the other question that is being asked. How will we respond to the Spirit’s prompting? In certain situations on the road to Jericho, in the journey of life, we will be asked this question, will we go the extra mile? So, not only is it having to do with will I see? Not only will it have to do with will I have compassion? Not only will it have to do with am I willing to act on that compassion? But then, it also will be connected to what am I going to have my attitude like in the action? This is a key thing. It’s nuanced, but I hope we can get it. I’ve had it happen to me.

I have responded to the Lord. I have seen things through the eye of compassion. I have felt the responsibility to respond to the Lord, and therefore, made a decision to act on my faith. I have not always done it with the right attitude. The tenderness was missing. In fact, if anything, it might have been done grudgingly. I’m going to suggest that when we respond to a right thing, and we do it in the wrong way, we undermine the blessing it was meant to be. I wish I can say I haven’t done it, and I don’t do it, but it’s not true. I know there have been times I’ve responded to something because in a relational situation, where I knew I was supposed to do it, and I did but I didn’t do it with a great attitude. Something was lost of what it was meant to be. Do you understand what I’m saying?

The Samaritan, as Jesus describes him, he doesn’t just go, “Oh, man.” And kick dirt on the ground or just roughly deal with the man and say, “I can’t believe it. Get up here. I have to throw you onto my horse and whatever my donkey. Just take you. It’s just a waste of my time, but I have to do it. Because it’s the right thing.” You know what I’m saying. If we do that, we lose something, the opportunity. What will our attitude be when we respond in love?

This is a part also, that don’t miss it. Don’t miss this. I try not to miss it. Is that the tenderness of the man, The tenderness of the Samaritan, the attentiveness, the thoroughness, the extravagance of love, of relational sacrifice, the way in which it was done? The heart of it. The way he was being in it, these things, this is what matters, it does. I guess, none of that happens if we don’t choose to make ourselves available to God. If I can close it this way, I would say the last thing I would mention that love does that we’re told in this story, is a beautiful story. Is that love always calls us to “availability.” What do I mean by that?

At the moment when we are having to make a call, a decision, am I going to be a passer-by, or am I going to respond to what the Lord is asking me to address? I guess that’s the question as we make our way down the road to Jericho. Are we available to God? Are we available? Are we willing to be expressions of spontaneous love? Not planned out love but spontaneous love and don’t miss that here. I think planned love is fantastic. But this is about spontaneous love as much as anything.

One more thing, Bob Goff said in that book Love Does, he says, “I used to think that you had to be special for God to use you. But now I know you simply need to say yes.” I could relate, I used to think you had to be special for God to use you. But now I know you simply need to say yes. Here’s the thing, if we limit this, by the way, this story, the parable to only those who are on the margins of society, we will misinterpret what Jesus was saying. It can include that and maybe it best fits there.

When we really think about it, this person who was injured on the road was most likely a business person himself, a tradesman, a trader, some person who dealt with resources because you can’t be robbed usually if you don’t have something to be robbed of. So this man of some means was left on the side of the road, he really wasn’t a down and outer. Although I think it certainly can fit beautifully with the idea of ministering to the needs of those who have very little or who are wounded or hurt.

Just remember, there are hurting people, people all around us. There are down and outers, yes, and there are up and outers as well. There are people who need our attention. People who we do not know, who they are strangers, and in utter need. There are people who are friends of ours, and they are in need of a different kind. There are people who are co-workers to us who we need to be open to help, There are people in our own family circles that need us desperately.

The fact of the matter is, it could be a family member or a church member, it could be someone in the church community that we have been connected to, in a small group that we’re a part of, or a ministry group that we’re a part of. It could be someone that just we now know about their need. God wants us to respond to that. The point is of that is that need is everywhere. These moments are going to come and Jesus is just saying, “I want you to live with open eyes and an open heart.” This is not just about serving the underprivileged or sponsoring a child. But it’s even more than that.

If we only limit it to that, we miss it so much. It’s about helping the hurting people that God places in our lives, and maybe even more. It’s about the hurting ones that God brings us across our path. It says this is the one I need you to help here. That could be someone very close to us. It has to do with our willingness to be a wounded healer. It does. It has to do with our willingness to be an imperfect blesser. Sometimes, it just needs to be something as simple as being a trustworthy listener. One who is open to praying and just listening really. I’ll put it this way. Maybe God is just calling us to pray and stay available, pray and stay available.

To be a people who give and bless tenderly in many ways, many beautiful ways. That is our mission, isn’t it? That’s our church. We are to live out our faith in Jesus and invite others into life with him. That’s our 2020 pursuit. To sow with water and reap. To sow good because we want to sow God. We want to sow good because we want to sow God. He is so good. He saw God at work in our lives. So, we want to be His hands and feet. Let that be the case externally, outside of our relationships that are close.Internally as well.

have a little thought to share with you on the way out, and then I want to bless you all. I want to remind everybody, as I do, that even though we don’t have a formal giving time, this is the time when I do mention to everyone that if you can, and some of you been doing this beautifully, thank you. This is the time for tithes and offerings. Just to remind you of it, if you have a chance to be faithful, you’re giving, especially you’ve been blessed with the means to do it, please. Remember you can do that on the app, online, you can do it in a more traditional way and send it into the offices, whatever works. Just know that it’s making a huge difference. It really is. It says something about you and your love for this work and all that we’re doing together as we make this journey together.

So as we go our separate ways, He just wants to remind all of you that what we water that’s what’s going to grow. We’re going to reap what we sow, but what we water that’s what’s going to grow. I really want to challenge all of us to think about the people that God is bringing across our path. It may not even be directly in presence. It may have to do with who he’s bringing across on our minds.

Even the course of the time that we’ve spent together, there may be something that the Lord has prompted in your heart, a name that he’s got you thinking about, or maybe you are already thinking about a person. This just confirms that. This just reinforces the fact that you’re sensing God wanting you in some way to bless, to heal, to refresh, to encourage, send a note, send a prayer, communicate, give a listening ear, respond in Christ, and be what Jesus talked about. Let the spirit of the Good Samaritan rest upon us.

The other thing I would say is that whatever we choose to do, do it with a great attitude. Let’s be His hands and feet, be a representation of His heart. Let’s love in word and in deed. Let’s just live with openness and open eyes. Let’s be alive in Christ. I’m convinced when we bless, we get blessed. When we help others, we ourselves are being helped. It’s not our main motivation, it’s just the byproduct. It’s the kingdom way.

So I pray a blessing over you. I pray the grace of Jesus over you. I pray for your healing, that you may be a healer in his name. I ask for the Lord to bless us all, spirit and soul, and our bodies. Help us to stay confident and optimistic. Lord, I ask that. Help us to live with open eyes. Our hearts are soft before you, we want to do our best for you, Lord. So I ask this blessing in Jesus’ name.

Love you guys. I’m glad we’re making this journey together. Whatever the day is ahead of us whole, we’re going to go there together. The Lord is with us.