Matthew 25:41-46 New International Version (NIV)
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.” Thursday, October 15 I once knew a man who was so fixated on doing great things for God that he treated the people around him with contempt. He believed that his work for God was so important that disagreements or (mild) criticism were attacks on God’s plan. The people around him were only valuable for what they could do to accomplish his supposedly God-given vision. Often, when we are so focused on doing things for God that we stop caring about the people in our daily lives. We send a check to the Salvation Army and we feel good about ourselves, but then we yell at our kids. We serve at a soup kitchen to put another notch in our “good works” belt, but then we are mean and nasty to our spouse or a friend. We think that we are standing before God making a PowerPoint presentation of all the wonderful things we have done for Him, but then God makes his own presentation of all the things we conveniently forget, left out and ignore. You know… all the ways we failed, screwed up and let him down. Shockingly, Jesus has promised to forgive all of that! Will we trust in Jesus? Or will we trust in our own ignorant version of ourselves?