Love to Serve to Faith Forward

Everyone has needs.
We need a comforting arm or a companion for the journey;
a safe dwelling place or a square meal;
a time of rest or rededication.
From every community, every family, every economic level,
people seek help,
a source of fulfillment for the things they lack.
God invites us into a life of abundance,
where all can be filled,
and where all will be called
to become helpers, too.

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What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

James 2:14-17

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There are many ways to become lost. We often put our faith in the wrong things, wrong people, or wrong ideas.

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No matter how bad it has been, there is always an opportunity to turn our failures into success, especially if we can learn from our mistakes and grow in wisdom.

Those who refuse to seek reconciliation starve themselves, but those who freely offer forgiveness give the best gift.

Love makes the difference


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But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.

Luke 15:32

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Faith is a choice, for life.

When we become followers of Christ, we know we will be changed. Walking with Jesus has always had that effect. Fishermen became disciples. Sick people became well. Blind people became sighted. 

Faithfulness changes every step we take, for all our lives.

Faith is also a choice for life.

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Belief in the resurrected Christ means following in the way of life; there’s no room for lifelessness in an Easter faith. If faithful people fail to use their hearts, hands, and feet in service to those in need, our faith is as good as dead. No matter how rightly we believe, unless we are doing faith — by caring for others, providing for their needs, reaching out to help — unless we are faith-ing with our hands and feet, our faith is as extinct as the dinosaurs.

Let’s practice a walking-around faith, a feeding faith, a giving faith — a faith that is a way of life, for life.

Prayer:  God, nurture in me a living faith. Give me hands that are ready to serve; feet that are ready to go; and a heart that is ready to love. Amen.

God loves a new beginning. It doesn’t matter who you were yesterday, last month, or last year; if you are still breathing, God has a brand new plan for your life. Labels and stereotypes mean nothing to the One who created you.

Your story was made to intersect God’s bigger story over and over again. Wherever you are, God has put you there; God has a purpose in your being where you are. Christ, who lives in your heart, has something in mind to do through you, exactly where you are.

Believe this and go in God’s grace, power, and love.

As the hands and feet of God,
we put our faith to work in service to the world,
trusting in the One who has helped us,
named us,
and called us
to lead us to those in need.
Let us love as God loves:
with hands ready to get dirty,
with feet ready to walk far,
with eyes ready to see hardship,
with hearts ready to receive.
Let us love as God loves:
with lives ready to serve.