Is your heart shaped like outstretched hands or clinched fists?
By: Machelle McDowell
What should God’s church look like? I think I have a picture to show you! Envision with me, if you will, as I paint a mental picture on the canvas of your mind.
I was blessed to spend some time in Ghana back in the summer of this year. On one particular Sunday our team split into groups and was assigned different churches to attend and speak at.
The little church that we attended had the sweetest fellowship! It left an everlasting imprint on my mind and heart.
The service was very special for me that day for many reasons. For one, my son, Josh spoke to the church with words of encouragement and challenge. Following his message an offering was received.
A medium sized plastic container was set on a chair and placed in the front of the church. We all began to sing with lifted hands in praise to the Lord as we danced in a line similar to “follow the Leader” up to the chair to lay down our offerings to God.
As I placed my offering into the basin my heart was instantly touched! The bottom of the container was covered with pesos and a few cedis, (at the beginning of the service a report was given of the tithes for the week before which was 15 Cedis equivalent to about $3.00 USD).
I couldn’t help but think of the widow's offering found in Mark 12:44.
“For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.“
As the service came to an end the sweetest expression of God‘s love was demonstrated! The entire church walked out of the building and into the village directly behind it.
It was such a feeling of what it might have been like to walk with Jesus and his disciples as they ministered to people along their way. We walked through the village to a home where a lady lost her mother to an illness. We prayed over the family and the church gave her a gift of a few (cedis) to purchase food.
We continued to walk across the village to another home where a man had lost his brother. We prayed for a man who was grieving the loss of his brother and the church comforted him.
These acts of love we’re such an outpouring of Jesus!
Have you ever given God everything you have? These people did not give out of abundance but out of poverty with joy!
I’m not just speaking of monetary things, but the things that consume our (whole) being. Things that cost us God’s blessing: self absorption, pride, wrong motives, and negative attitudes. These things prevent us from giving our all to Jesus!
The people of this church never once complained that they were going to be late for Sunday dinner or that their stomachs were grumbling from hunger.
They were focused on completing this mission of loving like Jesus. It wasn’t done in a hurried fashion and they did it in unity. Every person in that fellowship that day spent an extra hour loving on people in their community. I am sure they all had other things they needed to do or could have done. But they gave Jesus their all that day. Witnessing this kind of love made me feel very superficial.
Is our hearts shaped like an outstretched hand or a clinched fist?
Jesus paid a ransom for us. He invested his life in us. He expects us to invest in others.
This little church in Ghana hung a portrait of what the Family of God looks like on my heart that day. I pray we model that kind of love in our churches here. Let’s give Him our all!