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HERE IS WHY our brethren
Foremost: It is of immense importance to our Savior, for they are His brethren, and He is persecuted with them.
We are facing a Christian Holocaust in our world. When we stand in eternity will we, as American Christians, be proud or ashamed of our actions toward the majority of Christians in our world who are destitute, rejected by their societies, and persecuted? Should we use our prosperity and material blessings to continue to spoil ourselves, and build temples of stone, or will we begin to give substance to our worship of the Lord by beginning to lay down our lives for our brethren by helping them. There can be no greater expression of our love for Jesus Christ than helping those of His followers in whom Christ presently suffers. We need relationships with the Body of Christ throughout the world; not just relationships with missionaries. By sending love offerings to congregations, (as well as to missionaries) we build relationships in the Body of Christ, follow the Biblical example, and inspire the prayers and love of God's people for each other around the world. Our “real” acts of love (helping persecuted and impoverished Christians in the Third World) will begin the revival we are all praying for in the Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, and communist nations and in America. Jesus' foremost command was for us to love one another. God’s love for us, and our love for one another is the foundation from which we are intended to go forth to our world proclaiming the love of God and our "great salvation" through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is by the love we express for each other that the world recognizes us as followers of Jesus Christ. Without this extraordinary love expressed by Christians for each other, our message is empty to the Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Communist, and secular societies. Love for our fellow Christians is defined in the New Testament as “action and deeds, not just words and expressions of the tongue.” We truly love God and our brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ by helping them in real ways when they are in great need. In the Old Covenant, the focus was on the temple of stone. In the New Covenant of Jesus Christ, the focus is on the living temple of the Body of Christ, in whom Jesus dwells. True revival will result in our giving our lives to the rebuilding of the living temple of God’s people, by helping them with food, clothing, and medical care. This is “love with actions and in truth, not with words only.” I John 3:16-19 We are crying out for revival in our churches, and the path to revival is for us to begin to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ around the world. Obedience is the path to revival. If American Christians were laying down their lives for their brethren, as our Lord calls us to do, we would see unimaginable blessing. We lay down our lives for each other by sharing our material resources with our brethren who are in need. Instructions on giving in the New Testament centers foremost on helping fellow Christians who are in need. In fact, over 60% of teaching in the New Testament, concerning giving, instructs us to help our fellow believers who are in need. These instructions are being virtually ignored in our churches, hence, the "law of Christ," to bear each other’s burdens, is unfamiliar, if not unknown, to most American Christians. Instead, tradition has replaced God's Word, and the law of Moses (tithing) is taught in our churches. Re-instituting the law (the "imperfect" covenant) returns the "veil" of the law which blinds us to the higher law of Christ. Thus, we have neglected the higher law of Christ to bear each other's burdens, by instead practicing the Old Covenant "imperfect" command to tithe. The application of this imperfect covenant blinds us to the needs of our brethren, and we think we have obeyed God. In truth, we have disobeyed Him by taking up again those elements which were nailed to the cross with Jesus. We now have a higher law to obey: the law of Christ for us to lay down our lives for each other. The law of Christ would never lead Christians to neglect their pastors and local church family. However, under Christ, the emphasis is upon the living temple; under the Old Covenant the emphasis is on the temples of stone. Furthermore, Jesus told his followers that whoever was not willing to give up all that he has, cannot be His disciple. Under the New Covenant our goal is to give everything, but not under the threat of a curse, or under compulsion. We are to give freely, and out of love. Jesus lives in the hearts of His followers, and most certainly in the lives of those in the Body of Christ who are persecuted and impoverished solely because they are Christians. To ignore our fellow suffering Christians in our world is equivalent to ignoring Jesus Christ Himself. American Christians may soon face growing persecution and economic hardship. If we fail to help our brethren who are now facing great trials, we will not have full assurance of the Lord’s help for us during our own trials. At the Judgment, Jesus Christ will tell those who ignore the sufferings of Christians: "away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his demons! For I was hungry, and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty, and you didn’t give me anything to drink. I was a stranger, and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me no clothing. I was sick and in prison, and you didn’t visit me." We will not be able to excuse ourselves by saying we tithed, or that we gave to the building fund, or even that we gave for missions. We cannot merely preach the everlasting Gospel of the love of God through Jesus Christ, and then do almost nothing to exemplify this love by helping those who, at our urging, have cast themselves upon Jesus at great risk of being disowned by their families, fired from their jobs, forfeit their educations, deserted by their spouse, and facing imprisonment, beatings, and sometimes death. There is something wrong with our conception of Jesus Christ when the church in general does not inform itself with great energy and concern of the sufferings of hundreds of millions of Christians in our world, and consequently does virtually nothing to raise financial help to relieve and bring comfort to those suffering members of the Body of Christ. We are crying out for unity in our churches. The obvious path to unity is to begin to unite with and help, our impoverished, broken and persecuted brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ who are all around the world. We forget they are also members of The Body of Christ. Think about what that really means—The Body of Christ. We need our persecuted brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ as much as they need us. Perhaps more. We need their love, and prayers, and the experience of their rich faith, and their encouragement for us to turn back to the cross Jesus calls us to carry. God did not bless America and her Christian population for the purpose of spoiling ourselves in materialism and greed. We were placed here "for such a time as this" as was Esther in the Old Testament. If we fail to help our brethren, God will effect deliverance from another source, and will punish us for our failure. We keep quoting 2 Chron 7:14 in our churches, "if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." But we never identify our sins. We only name the sins of the society around us (abortion, homosexuality, etc.). Our greatest sin in our evangelical churches is our failure to help our suffering brethren. It is not enough to just pray once a year for persecuted Christians. The early church took up weekly offerings to help their brethren who were in need. With more Christians experiencing persecution than ever in the history of the church, we must re-institute these Biblical collections for God’s people. We need a revival of real love in our churches, or our praise will be noise, and our theological expertise like that of the Pharisees: nothing but dead knowledge. We need a return to the cross in the American believer’s life, and we "lay down our lives for our brethren" (take up our cross) by financially helping our brethren. The love of God is defined by our Savior as the laying down of His life on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. The love of Christians is also defined as the laying down of our lives for each other by sharing our material possessions with other Christians who are in great need. As the Apostle Paul so eloquently stated: "I am a slave to righteousness." To which "righteousness" are we bound? To the perfect Righteousness of Christ, and the fulfillment of His law of love in our lives for us to bear each other’s burdens, and to lay down our lives for our fellow Christians? Or to the imperfect righteousness of the law of the Old Covenant? To love our neighbors (specifically our fellow Christians) as ourselves is the fulfillment of the law. What would you do if your natural family was suffering and in great need? The answer is obvious. Can we act any less compassionately and forthrightly towards our family in Jesus Christ? Beloved, I believe this is the most pressing issue facing the American Christian community. Pray for an awakening to our calling and responsibility. One day we will all stand before Jesus Christ. Will we be able to honestly say that we did not understand we were commanded to help our brethren? The American church will not be able to avoid the truth of the sufferings of the people of God, and our failure to help them when we could have and should have. We have the Word of God which clearly states our responsibilities. By losing our lives for our brethren, we will find our lives, our real destiny, and God’s reason for us to have been born here in America. References: Matthew 25:31-46; 1 John 3:16-19; 2 Cor. chapters 8 & 9; John 4:23, 13:34-35, 14:21, 23; 15:12-14, 17; 17:23; Acts 5:32; Rom. 12:13, 13:8; 1 Cor. 16:1-2; Gal. 2:9-10, 6:2; James 2:15-17 References concerning the relationship of the Old Covenant law to the Christian: Rom 7:6, 10:2-4, 13:8-10; 1 Cor. 9:20-21; 2 Cor. 3:3-18; Gal. 2:4; 2:15-3:14; 5:4-6; Eph. 2:4-16; Phil 3:8; Col. 2:13-14; Heb. 7:18-19, 22; and Heb. 8:6-7, 10, 13
Why should we help our Christian “family”??? Here is why!
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