The Sheep and the Goats

Hey Everyone!

I hope y'all are doing fantastic!  This is a fairly basic message, and I'm sure many of you don't need to read this, but please do so anyway, perhaps the Spirit may speak to you in a way I can't even imagine!  I feel bad that I'm still working on stuff so basic, but it's a journey, and the Spirit is guiding me, so I'm just moving where He moves!
  So I've been thinking a lot the past week about what it means to be a true follower of Christ.  That's not really all that strange; I've thought about that a lot over the past few years.  So, with this on my mind, I've been reading different books and Bible passages!  I was reading a book called Crazy Love, by Francis Chan, and there was a quotation of Matthew 25:31-46!

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
   34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
   37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
   40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
   41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
   44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
   45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
   46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

So there it is!  Now, I've read this passage before.  It's just always stuck out as kind of irrelevant to me.  This is for various reasons: I'm busy learning and growing in my faith already, I'm trying to give God my all, not people my all, I don't have adequate opportunities to do the kinds of things that verse 35 and 36 call for, and sometimes I go so far as to even say I'm just plain too busy.  This is SO WRONG! First of all, giving God my all requires me to give people my all.  This is what Jesus is saying in verse 40, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."  So then, I go into the denial phase, where I say, "but I do nice, generous, sometimes even sacrificial things for other people!"  But see, there's the problem.  Jesus didn't say "whatever you did for other people, you did for me." He said "whatever you did for ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF MINE, you did for me."  Earlier on in Matthew, Jesus had said "If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?"  Here is my problem: I love helping out those that I love, my friends, my family, even strangers that are members of the Church.
     Today I was talking with a friend (an agnostic), and he said something that really coincides with all of this.  He said, "A Christian can honestly say that he has experienced God in his life.  But I can go down the road and find a Muslim that can say the exact same thing.  So how do you decide?"  Yes, the world needs to hear the Gospel and how God is moving in our lives.  But more than that, they need to see our love, our actions, our passion for helping others that can only come from the Holy Spirit.  So that's what I've decided to pray for everyday from now on: a passion to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, invite the stranger, clothe the needy, and look after the sick in prison for "one of the least of these."  It's easy to do those kinds of things to those I love.  I need the Holy Spirit's fire for other people.
I pray that you might have gained something from my walk with Christ.  But more than that, I pray that you also desire to have that fire to help the least of these.  Please don't forget to pray for me whenever you remember to!

Thank you for reading, and God bless!

Andrew C. Nelson