Posted on 06/23/2022 5:48:56 PM PDT by Faith Presses On
I will do so. Thank you. It’s appreciated.
Yes, I believe the same way.
And as some homeless people put on their panhandling signs (and to be clear, I don’t panhandle), “anything helps.”
That’s true in what we do in resisting the devil and in helping to destroy his works.
“Most content I’ve been is when I had nothing but the clothes in my car and my car - working & living with the poor. Go to Nicaragua or Haiti - the poorest of the USA are rich compared to them.”
Yes, I agree. I’ve had no interest in attaining a lot of wealth in life. I’ve been satisfied with little places and not having “much,” and putting whatever I have towards God’s service.
It’s like with 9/11. As human beings, we are heading for an eternal 9/11 — Hell. If that’s been revealed to you, and you’ve been saved from that, from being trapped in those burning buildings, then it’s your mission after being saved to try to do what you can to keep people from going in those buildings, or to convince those who can be to get out of them.
Being low-income here, though, I will add this comment. The poor here are both poor and rich (thinking here of Proverbs 30). True debilitating poverty in some ways, and of course riches in others. I think middle class people can get a sense of how there can be some of both at the same time.
I do also.
And in general. I don’t fit in among the low-income. I do what I can to be a godly person, exemplifying Christian and “middle class values.” But the people are largely conformed today’s culture, and that culture is very ungodly and antichristian.
“what does one have to do to be “worthy” of being homeless?”
The sorts of things that people of think of, that bring trouble on oneself.
In general, sin and lack of repentance. Going one’s own way. Using drugs and alcohol. Having an entitled mindset. Not being willing to work on things patiently, do things we consider “beneath” us, or delaying gratification. Unwise associations. Cutting corners. Blaming God. Etc.
“So, anyone know why this article is titled this way?”
Despite all the church here has (versus the church in other times in history and in other places, even today), it’s content not to do a lot that it could — and, more importantly, according to the New Testament, that it should.
For instance, in terms of helping the homeless, it’s very often content to let Catholic, mainline Protestant or secular organizations have a monopoly on offering some types of help. So, if you’re a Christian and need some help, you have no other option, for example, than to go to a Presbyterian Church USA for a service they’re offering. Once I needed to pay for a driver’s license renewal for a new job, but wouldn’t go to the designated church among a group which gave out such help — a PC USA church that had hosted radical pro-abortion speakers. I also wouldn’t go to them for some help once on part of my rent — I went so far as to call them, but then thankfully, by God’s miraculous intervention — missed their return call, and was able to arrange to sell my small TV on Craigslist for the money.
So it’s often “fine” for homeless people to have no other option for a type of help than to receive it from an apostate church. Do homeless people have souls? If there is some service only offered by an apostate church like the PC-USA, then Bible-believing churches should be ready to provide it to homeless people who don’t want to take their help, in some official or unofficial way.
A lot of the time, not a great amount of help is needed. Small things, a small hand, even just being willing to discuss a person’s problems, can be a big help. Maybe a church can help come up with another way to get someone money for a driver’s license renewal, for instance.
“I don’t think the writer and poster connects the analogy of the Laodicean church with her own situation very well.”
On what basis of knowing me do you say that?
I agree with these sentiments. Material goods can be a both a trap and a tremendous drag on your time and energy. The old term or “the rat race” seldom seen today, comes to mind.
I did not realize this clearly when I was younger…as I did not realize the true nature of our created universe and the true nature of life here on Earth. It comes with age…unless you are fortunately perceptive and have had a solid Biblical upbringing. We even see the phenomenon of “downsizing” everywhere around us and yet don’t quite grasp the principle behind those actions, a principle that was as true in our youth as it was when our own children left the nest.
In real life, being low-income, having working class jobs over the years, and sometimes homeless, is 99.9% of who I am to the church — all the assumptions and prejudgments. And my efforts to try to gently get beyond those haven’t worked either.
On my situation, my life is with the Lord. I trust His judgments, and know my times are in His hands, and He’s built my faith and intimacy with Him through my problems. I try to see them as much as is possible as not problems, but also challenges, and even more than challenges, but opportunities.
And I’m speaking about the American church because it’s the right thing to do. My needs will be met from the Lord according to His plan, and nothing can separate me from His love. I love Him, so I know He loves me, as we love Him only because He first loved us. I wait on Him to see how He leads me and takes care of me, but I have everything in my relationship with Him.
But it shouldn’t be that the church, overall, is so absent as it is in so many places.
Yet, as the pastor in the church I was just recently a part of preached, “Some people say a Christian shouldn’t get a Cadillac. I agree, you should get a Lincoln.”
Sad truth. It’s not of my own, but I am almost always repulsed by anything trendy or cool in Christian circles. It’s almost always a wolf in sheeps clothing.
Thank you.
Thankfully, by the grace of God, I’ve known more and more that it makes NO sense whatsoever to say no to God, ever. However, we’re not very good at saying yes to Him. But He’s given us a school where we can learn to do that, and learn to want to have our more of our “no” turn into “yes.”
God’s judgments, His sovereign will, are for our ultimate good. They’re never a waste.
I’ve not taken worldly deliverance or been driven by worldly success, even though for me that would have meant getting back the middle class status that I lost as a teen when my father passed away.
I’ve been homeless other times. Briefly, my family life growing up was a mess, and we also lost our middle class place. And in recent years, some physical problems have come up that have made work not possible right now, and I’ve not been able to work out stable housing since then. The idea that there are “all these programs” is part true but part myth.
For one thing, there are all sorts of programs for homeless people with drug and alcohol addictions. By the grace of God, He’s given me such a strong sense of purpose and joy in Him that I never seriously considered abusing either, although I can see why many low-income people do because the stress of it all is a lot.
And I’ve had the gift of faith, and I haven’t been willing to take short cuts or conform to the world to get back my middle class status. God has entrusted me with quite a bit to me, it has seemed to me, and I’ve had a very strong sense of that. So, for example, when I got a job out of college and my new boss became a huge early fan of the TV show South Park. She even “evangelized” for it by bringing in videotapes of it and sort of compelling us to watch it on our lunch hour. I was briefly tempted to insincerely become a “fan” of it, too, to get in her good graces. “Love is blind,” and she loved that show so much that I don’t think she would have caught on to my insincerity. But I found it to be an ungodly show (and I was still a pretty liberal Christian then myself) and in good conscience couldn’t commend it, so despite being in dire financial circumstances after my father’s death, I politely excused myself from watching her viewing party and failed to say anything complimentary about it.
Not going to commercialize what the commission God has given me. It’s one thing to earn a living from the work God gives you; it’s another thing to enrich yourself on it.
When you take money from a GiveSendGo, how do you know an 'apostate' didn't donate it?
Conversely, when you take money from your 'approved' church, how do you know an 'apostate' in that church did not donate it?
When you take money from any stranger, how do you know he or she is not 'apostate'?
And there was a man named Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector, who was very wealthy...When Jesus came to that place, He looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, hurry down, for I must stay at your house today.”...And all who saw this began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinful man!”… Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man too is a son of Abraham." -- Luke 19: 3-11
Cleveland's West Side Catholic Center Homeless Shelter is named after Zaccheus.
Oh I don’t think I have to “know you” to recognize a non seqitor.
I know many churches and groups do many things for the poor and needy just because you don’t see them. Americans by all measures give more per capita to charitable causes and for world relief missions than the rest of the world combined. We log more volunteer hours. The nation has lots of problems and it seems like the sinful have the loudest voice right now. Yet the reason why you don’t hear of the “good” doing good for God is because it doesn’t make the news. Christians simply being Christians and staying out of trouble, living righteously, raising their families, active in their church communities aren’t the ones making the news. They in reality are the only glue that is actually keeping things together right now. The Bible says the world hates us because the world hates Christ. Still like Elisha the prophet said...”There are more with us than against us” and the person he was speaking to had his eyes opened to the the angelic hosts of the Lord.
One of my favorite photographs was 4 highschool senior males...black and white gathered around the trunk of a car...the photographer was a woman curious about what was going on. She discovered that these 4 young men gathered every morning before school to pray and read scripture. There are many small groups like this, praying and doing what they can.
You have your sphere of influence the Lord gives you..others have theirs. God raises up nations and throws them down and our fate may be like others...but what can we as individual Christians do...serve the Lord as best we are enabled to do. There is still salt with savor in this country so don’t be so despairing. Darker times may be coming but grace shall abound more!
There is more than “one church” in America. You find churches which are of all the attributes of the original 7 churches and God will deal with all of them as he did with the original 7.
If you identify as Christian, Bible-believing Christian, that tends to discourage people from donating money who are antichristian.
And there is a difference, too, between a church body with declared beliefs and individual believers.
So the answer is “custom-made.”
We tend to have “factory thinking” in our era, and want hard-and-fast rules like different social programs have.
But we can “custom” apply judgment to individual situations, and those are higher quality decisions than one-size-fits-all.
Noah didn’t order the Ark from Walmart or Amazon or go down to his local RV dealer. He built it all custom, from scratch, while under the Lord’s personal direction.
Answer the questions directly.
You probably do what you can and what the Lord lays in your heart as you live your life same as me and most people. There is always something we could do and don’t and other things we end up doing that we didn’t expect (for the Lord) that we would be doing that day. Sometimes we miss it, feel convicted and ask the Lord to help us do better next time. Some have greater faith and abilities others have lesser measures of faith.
May the Lord empower all of us to be better lights in this present darkness...day by day!
The Lord’s “opinion” is the one I care about.
Or do you think because I’m homeless and you’re not that that speaks all that needs to be said of our relative spiritual conditions?
So you don’t see the difference between a church with stated doctrines and beliefs and individual believers in a church? That’s gibberish to you?
Leviticus 19:15‘You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty. In righteousness you shall judge your neighbor.
You speak much about “middle class” values and wealth.
An otherwise righteous...poor person in a shelter can be off base if he or she judges a middle class or wealthy believer unjustly or a group for not “caring enough” and therefore...”Laodicean”. Of course I’m sure the shoe doesn’t fit you??!! ;)
I’m not just speaking from recent observation, but over two decades. And I never said the church isn’t doing good things. And with reason, many others bring up the worldliness in the church here today.
James says “the poor are rich in faith.” I never cease to be amazed at the faith of the truly poor when I am among them. But then, why not? They have nothing else.
We however have untold material riches to distract us, hold our focus and attention.....indeed, demand our attention. Just think of maintaining an older vehicle - like most of mine. When they are broken, we become their slaves to get them fixed.
Those without vehicles have no such burdens, and are truly free to focus their faith on believing God.
Their faith is sweet indeed.
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