Sunday, April 7, 2013

Least of These: God's Story

Last week, we read about how God's people get to be incarnational, how they get to live like the people that they are living with, just like Jesus did. But, what if the people that we are living with have problems? What if they are hungry or thirsty or sick? What if someone is being unfair to them? What do you think that God's people are supposed to do then?

Yep. You guys are pretty smart. Not everybody has always thought that that was so simple. But, Jesus thought that it was important. Jesus thought that it was so important that He told a story about it. This is part of what He told the people who were listening.

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” (Matthew 25:34-40)

When Jesus was incarnational, He used his words to tell people about God's story, his own story, but He also used His actions to show that God's story really was true. He fed people when they were hungry, not by making bread fall down from the sky, like in the Old Testament, but by finding out what the people he was with did have, and then making that little bit more...

Download a PDF of the entire story here and click on the activity pages below to download.




No comments:

Brains and Boxes

Nine years ago, I sat on a dark rooftop with an uncertain and frustrated team. Frustrated by the four walls that seemed to be hemming t...