Citizenship

[dolfan]

OK, bring all the poor, sick, etc. That won't make America a 3rd world nation. How about the poor you will always have with you> Jesus said that and it is and always will be true. American can't solve poverty among it's own let alone among the billions among the Earth not to mention our hungry are still hungry tonight.

You're right. America cannot solve world poverty. I don't think Jesus commanded the church to do so, either. That's no relief from obeying Him.

The early church in Acts did not set out to establish a national welfare program or feeding plan or food distribution plan for the public in Israel. What they did, though, is well documented and beyond serious question. They sold what they had, gave the proceeds to a common fund within the church, and gave to those who had need. They worked in order to be able to do that, and that's exactly what Paul said to do.

Look, I'm with you that America is powerless to do anything. America is already worse than a third world nation in many ways. With all that it has, it has squandered and corrupted away more than any nation in history, maybe more than all nations in history combined. We're no less corrupt than Egypt or Libya or Iran. In fact, the same companies that are driving the wealth of those nations drive the wealth in America! (Oil companies .... no, I'm not bashing "big oil"*; but, it is true.) So, as nations go, America is just another face in the crowd for my money.

The church, though, is special, unique, and completely and solely charged with its mission of making disciples. That IS its work. Discipleship in Christ is, biblically speaking, consumed with the poor and hungry and weak and the bruised, the oppressed, the widows and the fatherless and the imprisoned. Those are the people from whom the disciples of Christ are called and chosen. I'm already guilty of turning my back and heart on them. While the church will not cure poverty -- and it isn't called to -- it will HAVE TO aim its efforts at those people. Otherwise, it isn't the church or Jesus lied, or both.

It really is beginning to dawn on me how that the narrow path of the Way of Jesus is far more biblically connected to ministry to those people than it is to any other set of behaviors (i.e, sin avoidance/sin management). The straight and narrow is more than simply walking with God away from sinful lusts and drunkenness and lasciviousness and avarice, etc.; it is chiefly a wholesale dive into the suffering of the sufferers. That's what we see in the ministry of Jesus, the passion, Pentecost and its immediate aftermath, Philippians 2, and if you fast forward to Revelation, you see it in the church at Smyrna in Rev. 2:8-11.

If American Christians are inclined to feel good about themselves while we stand against illegal immigrants within our borders, we're fooling ourselves about whether we're in the faith, IMO. I think it is absolutely no coincidence (and, Danny, I know you're not COGOP) that the Church of God of Prophecy is seeing its growth outside of the US and mainly in those places where the kind of poverty and hunger we're talking about exists as the norm. I think (and this is a big change from me, as you may note) that God is using Pentecostal churches in such places because they seem to be leading in the way of love for "those people".

Can the load crumple America? Sure. Probably will. I don't really care. If it isn't that, it will be one or humpty-eleven-hundred other things because America is doomed anyway. One nation will prevail, and that against Hell itself: the church of Jesus. America is DOA with everything else.


*That's not my battle. If politicians, pundits and people want to bash their heads against the wall bashing whomever they believe responsible for the state of things, well, they're welcome to it. They're as crazy as the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel as near as I can tell because it is an exercise in futility.