Can Our Country Care for the Caravan?
Can Our Country Care for the Caravan?
Written on November 4, 2018 by Bob Russell
My wife is writing a book about hospitality. I think she’s qualified. Over the past fifty years, Judy has entertained over 1000 preachers and missionaries. And, I have on several occasions, without advance warning, brought homeless and hurting people to our house and we’ve kept them in our home overnight. She wasn’t thrilled about that, but she quickly made provision. Big, planned parties and small impromptu get-togethers have occurred often in our home. The Bible instructs us to, “Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.” My wife has obeyed that command often over the years.
Peace of Mind
Peace of Mind
2 Corinthians 2:12-17
12 Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me, 13 I still had no peace of mind, because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said goodbye to them and went on to Macedonia.
14 But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. 15 For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. 16 To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task? 17 Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as those sent from God.”
Partake then Take
In November the International Conference on Missions will meet in Cincinnati. Thousands will gather, as they have for 70 years. Friends will reconnect from all over the world. They might share an Italian meal at the hotel, a breakfast of French roast coffee and croissants, or an Asian feast at a Japanese steakhouse. Almost anywhere in the world nowadays you can partake of meals from . . . almost anywhere.
If we were to have a fellowship meal here and each of you brought food from the farthest place you’d ever been, what kind of ethnic meal would we have? Indian curry? Texas barbecue? Irish stew? We could call it an uttermost banquet—brought from the uttermost parts of the earth.
Confident 2 Cor. 3:1-6
2 Corinthians 3:1-6
1. Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? 2 You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. 3 You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
4 Such confidence we have through Christ before God. 5 Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. 6 He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
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