Why Charity?

  Unavoidably, this week's blog entry is shortened, and the Sow What? class for 24 August is cancelled.  Please don't miss the message Caring for the Poor and Oppressed .  Thx. 
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  The giving of the scriptures are actually doing good that qualifies in spirit and in purpose.  That is, acts of service and charity.  Works must be done out of a love of giving, if we are to understand Mathew 6 correctly, from the soil out of which all benevolence springs.  Love for God and love for our fellow man are inseparably one.  So giving, rooted in love, fosters a unity in Christ, the center of all real works.  Those who serve and those served draw spiritual sustenance at the same time.   This is our most powerful evangelism, as in doing the works Christ has directed us to do, in the way we have been directed to do them – filled with His love and cheer (joy) in working alongside Him; WE DRAW GOD NEAR to the object of His charity.  Our faith then becomes something others can experience; they can taste and see that the Lord is good when our faith conquers our hearts and springs forth in true works of cheerful service and charity.  We are blessed powerfully in obedience and in proximity to Love Himself.  The lesson from Love Himself in giving may be witnessed in the act of the divine incarnation.  Divine love revealed itself in accepting an earthly form.  At that moment of disclosure, our Lord worked out His deepest reverence and understanding of you and me.