“What
am I supposed to be doing?” I
get asked
that question a lot. Oddly,
it is most
often asked by long time, faithful church members. It seems that we have been
good about teaching
people what to believe, but not as good about helping them figure
out what God
wants them to do. He did
not take us
home immediately after our baptism, so we must be here for a
reason.
What, then, is your
job?
If
someone
uses a hammer every day, you could probably guess that he or she
is a
carpenter. If they use a
stethoscope, they
could be a doctor or a nurse. A
calculator is likely used by an accountant and, if your tool is an
airplane,
you might be a pilot or a flight attendant.
Therefore, if we
look at our spiritual
toolbox, we will be able to figure out what we are supposed to be
doing
too. So, what do we have
for tools?
One
necessity,
mentioned several times from the start of the Bible to the end, is
that God’s
people are to have soft hearts! In fact, three times in
nineteen verses, the
inspired writer of Hebrews says, “Do not harden your hearts!”
(Hebrews 3:8;
3:15; 4:7).
Why does God want us
to have soft
hearts?
We
need
soft hearts because it is our job to love something.
What are we to love?
Jesus said, “Love
the Lord your
God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
mind and… Love
your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39).
Most
find
the “love God” part easy enough. However,
from my observation, the church has a struggle with the “have a
soft heart
toward your neighbour” part.
Interestingly, in
Luke’s gospel,
these words are followed by Jesus’ parable about “The Good
Samaritan”. In that story,
two people with hearts that
are soft toward God, a Priest and Levite, are shown to have hard
and uncaring
hearts toward the man who was robbed. By
contrast, the hero of the story is the soft-hearted Samaritan who
goes out of
his way to help. Jesus
ends this passage
by saying, “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37).
When
we
have a soft heart that responds both to God and to those around
us, connections
are made, bridges are built, and people find their way home.
That is why we are here!
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