I Want To Be There

Sometimes I’m asked, “You’re retired! Why do you still do pro bono counselling? Why volunteer at the soup kitchen? Why raise another family, and one made up of kids "who will never be able to do anything to make you proud of them?"

Of course there are many reasons why I do these things, but there is one MAIN reason why I don’t say “No” to doing these things. The main answer is, “I want to be where Jesus is.”

Jesus said, “Where I Am there My servants will be also.”

And where is Jesus?

He’s with the poor (financial and spiritual), He’s with the hurting, confused, lost, lonely, fearful, abandoned and rejected. He sought out the children and the childlike, the sick and spiritually hungry, the persecuted and disenfranchised. Jesus fed the hungry. He comforted and healed the broken hearted.

I count it a high privilege and honour that Jesus would allow me to minster to those He loves. Jesus has promised to those just listed, “I will never leave you or give up on you,” and if that is where Jesus is, then I want to be there too, warmed by the light of His presence.

I came across an interesting contrast in philosophies this morning. I encourage you to read it.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/09/16/brook.moral.code.outdated/index.html?hpt=T2

It from an atheist, Yaron Brook who is president of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights and he thinks it’s time for a change in our system of morals.

Anyone surprised?

Brook says things like, “too many of us still turn obediently to [the Bible] as authorities about morality.” Brook says that rather than Jesus, “Darwin, or John D. Rockefeller,” should be our moral heroes. “It is they, not the Mother Teresas of the world, that we should strive to be like and teach our kids the same. If morality is a guide in the quest to achieve your own happiness by creating the values of mind and body that make a successful life, then morality is about personal profit, not its renunciation.”

I thought it was interesting that I should read that as I was slipping on my coat to go and spend a few hours to help feed the poorest in our community.

Mr. Brooks, the atheist, says further, “The fact that earning money is ignored by most moralists is telling of the distance we must travel. If morality is about the pursuit of your own success and happiness, then giving money away to strangers is, in comparison, not a morally significant act. (And it's outright wrong if done on the premise that renunciation is moral.) Science, freedom and the pursuit of personal profit - if we can learn to embrace these three ideas as ideals, an unlimited future awaits”

An unlimited future of what exactly, Brooks doesn't say. The atheist utopia awaits.

To that world-view I say, There are few things that we should fear more than spending our time on earth attempting to succeed at that which carries no heavenly value.

The only thing that carries any heavenly value is treating others with love.