Extend Your Hand

What are you doing with the gifts God has given you? God will bless incredibly those who give with a pure heart. Love one another, share with those in need, and encourage those who suffer in this time of heartache, pressing, waiting, and peril, especially in this time of evil and lawlessness.

Unlike any other time in history, your brothers and sisters in the Lord desperately need your helping hand, kindness, compassion, and love. So many are desperate to know that they are not alone. You are not alone.

Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby, some have entertained angels unawares. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. Hebrews 13:1-3

In these days of lack, desperation, and lonely endurance, everyone in the body of Christ must step up and do what the Lord has called us to do. Those who see must make it known, and those who hear must share what they hear. God has called us to lift each other in love and compassion, whether it is a helping hand, a mouth to speak the truth, feet that take action, a heart to feel, or a shoulder to cry on.

For as in one body, we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them:

if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. Romans 12:4

Give back to others what the Lord has given you. For this reason, God gave you a gift that you may help others. Extend your hand to the needy, your ear to the hurting, and your heart to those the Lord leads you. With hands open and hearts full, give without expecting anything in return. Pour it out on those in need, even your enemies. You never know what great work the Lord has planned for them.

But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Luke 8:35-36

It truly is not the things of this world that have importance. But it is the soul of man. Everything on this planet is temporal and will pass away in time. But the soul will live on through eternity. Love your family, your neighbor, the stranger, and your enemy. You may be surprised to find out the impression you have made on others, a ripple effect that reaches into eternity.

Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Luke 6:38

Who knows who the Lord has chosen? Who knows what divine appointment He will give you and the soul you may save from death and despair? God knows and will direct you to the souls you may have a hand in saving from eternal destruction. That one person you show kindness, love, and compassion and speak the truth of the love and forgiveness of Jesus may be the one that turns from sin to live in Jesus Christ.

Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season, we will reap if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. Galatians 6:7-10