When a christian is hurting due to some sort of tragedy that they have encountered in their lives, it is really the time that our christian brothers and sisters need to show them the love of Jesus. It is the time in their lives that they most need to feel the brotherly love and care shining into their lives and helping them to heal. Sadly, it is often when you are hurting and down that you will not feel the love of Jesus, but rather the total cold and harsh reality that is often the church of today.
I bumped into a little elderly lady the other day ( approx 60 years old). I know her fairly well from a church that we both “once” attended. This little lady has always been totally on fire for the Lord and does really great work going out and ministering to the poor areas. She is involved in running medical clinics and uses this to reach out to the poor and hurting. She has always been a real shining example of the true love of Jesus to all around her.
The lady started to relate to me how she was recently at a night meeting in one of the poor area’s. She had been attending these meetings, aimed at improving conditions in these slums, for the past 26 years. This particular meeting started to get out of hand and soon the fighting began. She left the meeting.
On going to her car outside she was cornered by two black men and her horror ordeal started where she was gang raped.
Instead of being met with the love of Jesus shining through her brothers and sisters in Christ, whom she had so lovingly helped and loved for many years, she was rather met with accusations of “having been looking for it” and even deserving the rape because she was in bad area’s. The pastor prayed once for her and she was expected to have been healed from this horror.
How sad! A hurt and ordeal like this does not simply go away with one little prayer. You don’t get over it just like that. Where is that love of Jesus that is supposed to shine out from the brothers in Christ. Instead of love there is condemnation.
The little lady shared how she rejected the church and became bitter and filled with hate. This lasted for months until one little young girl who was filled with the real love of Jesus, noticed the change in the little old lady who had led her to the Lord. The little girl alerted another sister in Christ, from another denomination, who was filled with love of Jesus and this lady came and ministered and loved continually until the hurts of the ordeal were healed by Christ.
Unfortunately the hurts of the rape were healed eventually, but the hurts caused by the unloving and uncaring “Christian” brothers are not healed.
I can recount hundreds of stories like this one. When you are sick or in trouble it is often those who you have ministered to for hours on end and those that you have served lovingly for years, who are the first to turn their back on you. Real christians are unfortuantely a scarce commodity in today’s times.
It is sad that many of our churches have become money making machines that are too busy to deal with and help those that are really in need. The love of Christ has often been replaced by a love of money. Brothers and sisters are too involved in themselves to be worried about others, and the love that is suppossed to radiate out to others is lost and instead attending church has become more about social status than spreading the love of Jesus.
Bring back the love of Jesus into your lives. Spend time to love those who are hurting. Help them and lift them up. Ask yourself what would Jesus do in this situation. Would He turn His back on them or would He hold out His arms and lovingly embrace them?
Love those who are hurting and nurse them back into spritual health. Bring back the love into our churches.
