Thursday, February 4, 2010

The Samaritan's Need to be Fully Involved

"...and came to him, and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them" (Luke 10:34b)

One the most unusual "reality" television programs currently being aired, beloved, is called Dirty Jobs. The premise is simply that the host of the program each week travels from location to location and tries his hand at some of the dirtiest, filthiest, most disgusting jobs that can be found for him. On those occasions that I have had opportunity to briefly watch just a few moments of any of these episodes, I know without a doubt that some of the things he has done I could never bring myself to do!

In Jesus' telling of the story about the Samaritan traveler and the wounded Hebrew victim, He made it clear that even being "inconvenienced," as we considered in our previous devotional, is not enough at times when it comes to ministering to the needs of those around us. Note carefully what the Samaritan did, beloved - he "bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them." This gracious man was willing to get down in the dirt and get blood on his hands! And that was the point at which his ministering went beyond the point of personal inconvenience and became downright "dirty." How well I recall being on a mission trip to the mountains of southeastern Kentucky with a large group of believers from a number of different churches. That was the "safe" part of the trip! On one particular day, however, I was given the opportunity to travel up the mountain with several other men, transporting a used but usable electric stove on the back of a truck. We made our winding way upward to a small ramshackle house perched precariously on the steep slope of the mountain, anchored to it only along the rear wall and "propped up" on the other three sides underneath by tree stumps and stacked stones and bricks. A young family came out of the house to meet us and to show us where they needed the stove to be. As we unloaded that stove, beloved, it began to rain. The hill on which the house sat was mostly clay and soon we found ourselves humanly "hoisting" that stove up a very steep slope, two men pulling from above on a rope slung around the bottom of the stove and the rest of us pushing from underneath and actually laying in the clay to do so. That was literally one "dirty" job! Yet to see the joy on the face of that young wife and to know what that used stove would mean to her made it all worth it. And, of course, through that act of ministering we had the privilege of sharing the good news of Jesus' love with them.

If we are going to serve Jesus Christ in our world today in a manner that impacts people for the sake of the gospel, we are going to have to be committed to becoming fully involved. We cannot turn away from the "dirty" needs of life, beloved. Not every situation that you will face as a servant of Christ will be "dirty," perhaps not even most of them. But those that are "dirty" are out there and those in such situations need our help just as much. How we need to determine here and now that we are going to be fully involved in people's lives, ministering to them where they are the wondrous love of God in Jesus Christ!

Ron