Many of us are content to sit back and attend our Sunday School classes (or not) and listen to what the teacher has to say. We never engage, we never make a real difference.
Part of our responsibility is to see the need in our brothers and sisters in Christ and meet it:
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
-1John 3:16-18
One of the key goals of Sunday School at my church is to “LOVE” (we also seek to “REACH” and “TEACH”). If you only teach information, you’ve missed it. If you only grow deeper without ever reaching out, you’re not really going deeper, and if you never minister to your fellow believers’ needs, you’re not following Jesus’ commands.
It’s not enough to wait for a member of your church to ask you for help, you need a process to be involved in each other’s lives to see the need and actively make a difference. That means every member is responsible for those around them.
Why do we love? It’s not because someone is “worthy,” it’s because Jesus first loved us. Love is such a twisted concept in our culture today, love is something that you do. Do you love your church? Okay… how?
What was the last thing you did for your church, the people in your faith fellowship? Do you give regularly and sacrificially to your church? If you don’t, do you really love your church? What do we call a father who does not pay for his children’s development? Is he loving his family by withholding his wealth as a deadbeat dad?
Love is practical, it’s not primarily an emotion (in the NT), though we are commanded to feel affection too (cf. Rom 12:10), it is an action not just a feeling. So, do you love the people of your church, or do you simply feel fond of them? How do you actively see the need and provide for it?
Are you active at your church, are you even a member? Don’t hold back! It’s up to us all, we can’t do it alone… but we can do it together. I think that’s the point.
