A Troubling Question

It's cold. The U.S. is blanketed in cold weather.

Our pastor today reminded us of John Stott's question to his students in a time of very cold weather, and I paraphrase. He asked them to close their eyes and vision what was in their closets. Then he reminded them they came to class wearing a coat. In your closet, he reminded them, were other coats. Then he asked, "What are those coats doing in your closet when so many have no coat?"

I've been thinking alot about the poor and what I do or don't do to assist them.

Many churches have pantries for stocking food for the hungry, but many of those same churches don't have enough food in their pantries to meet the needs of the hungry around their churches. Our pastor wondered out loud, "What if each of us when grocery shopping bought one more can of food for our church pantry?" At our church that would mean 500 cans of food brought to the church each Sunday to be given to the local food bank or Rescue Mission.

Too, if all of our families in our church brought one coat to church next Sunday (one out of likely many coats in our closets), we would have hundreds of perfectly good coats to take to Salvation Army or the Rescue Mission or some mission outlet.

Our pastor was preaching on Luke 3:7-18. Read the passage and ask yourself how you would respond to Jesus. We all have plenty of the world's necessities, yet we hoard much.

What's in your closet?