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They Took Care of The Poor
Brian Mashburn
April 27, 2008
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They Took Care of The Poor
"There were no needy persons among them." - Acts 4:34-35
With this sentence from Luke comes the standard of the kingdom of Christ.
Set aside, for the moment, all of the impossible difficulties that would be faced at achieving such a dream. Put out of your mind, if you will, the condemnation and dismissal of this vision as mere "stupid idealism" or a "pipe dream". Check your doubts and skepticism at the door, just this once, and leave behind your judgments about the laziness that you assume is found in most of the needy persons you may or may not have encountered.
Leave all that behind for a mere and holy moment...allow yourself to be a dreamer...a believer...it won't hurt...and imagine this description being applied to the people of Amarillo, TX.
What would be required of you to attain such an idea?
Awareness. Willingness. Intent. Surrender.
Whenever Jesus comes across the rich he always, without exception, invites them to come beyond where they are. He doesn't accuse them of malice or evil intention. He just shows them their blindness. Blindness is always the fair judgment on the rich. If the rich man, concerning Lazerus in Luke 16:19-31 can claim ignorance, then he need not struggle with willingness, he has nothing to be intent about, and he feels no call on his life to surrender a thing. So, the rich man is not evil, he didn't cause the poor man at his gate to be poor. He simply wasn't aware. Now I'm not defending the rich man's innocence. I merely want the accusation to be accurate. Spiritual blindness is the primary sin. Spirituality is simply about waking up.
In Acts, when the gospel message takes hold of people, it always, always, always affects the politics and social environment of those people. In Acts, they took care of the poor. If we want to see the movement of the Spirit like they did, then we must do the same. And it starts with awareness.