A concern for the lost:
2 Kings 6:24-25 Notice: Sometimes God may need to send a famine our way? to stir us, awaken us, alarm us, correct us, etc
2 Kings 7:3-11,16 (Notice: God may use the unwanted and dirty among us)
Sometimes we may feel like these lepers, incapable and unwanted, ignored and scorned by others, family and friends,? But notice they never lost their compassion!
James 1:27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
Micah 6:8 He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
Could it be any more simple? It is our responsibility to care! God has set an example
Romans 15:1 We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.
2 Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification.
3 For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written,
The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me.
Sometimes we should do things not so much for ourselves as for God!
Matthew 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
How can we claim to love God if we cant feel any concern or love for the lost? When’s the last time I cared enough to tell some lost soul Jesus loves them? I love them? When’s the last time I even tried to help them, gave them anything or prayed for them?..
Luke 16:19-25 There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:
(did anybody notice the bible never saids he stole, cheated, committed adultery, fornicated or killed? yet he still went to hell!)
20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,
21 And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
Can we get so blessed we forget the lost and hungry among us?
Questions:
1. Some people profess a concern for the lost but do nothing about it. What stops these people from acting?
2. How can we act on our concern for the lost? What should we do?