Pay it Forward
I don’t know if any of you watched this movie last night on TNT, but it was probably my third time to see it. When you’ve watched a movie multiple times, you begin to notice things you never noticed before and thinking about things that you didn’t think of the first time you watched it. For me, it was the concept. I remember hearing the concept before I ever watched the movie for the first time. But why did it work? Why did a concept that is basically giving to others work so well when there are plenty of avenues to satisfy this Christian commandment? Pay it forward worked because it gave a person a goal. When you generalize charity, and ask people to give, and ask people to help, they don’t really have a goal. Pay it forward gave them that. Find three people and help them. A simple concept, but successful because it was definitive. I’m going to strive to not only be charitable, but to set goals each day, week, and month. Setting goals and meeting them gives an extra boost of satisfaction that already accompanies giving to someone.
Luke10:25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26″What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27He answered: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”
28″You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
36″Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
37The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
If you have trouble giving, then I encourage you to set goals for yourself each day or each week. At the end of the week, review and see if you met your goals. As I try to meet mine, I’m going to blog about things that helped me reach my goals each week. Don’t hesitate to let me know if you have any advice for my struggle to go and do like the Samaritan.
You very lightly touch on something that’s been on my mind since the youth in our church group traveled to FL from our homestate of TN to do mission work.
First, let me say, I believe in mission work. Jesus, afterall, did say “go!” and preach to “all nations”.
I recently started pondering the fact that so many churches send missionaries out into foreign lands to work and share the Gospel message. Shouldn’t Christians be sure their own next door neighbor knows Jesus before we move on?
As in the “pay it forward” mindset, if all we Christians, really started focusing on helping our own neighbor, wouldn’t that eventually spread to “all nations”? Right now it seems we “leapfrog” right over some of the people in our own communities with the deepest need…the need to hear the Good News.
I’ve just been pondering that.
I was just talking to my dad about this very thing. He’s a minister turned missionary that has spent a lot of time in Belize and is now back home to disciple people here. He said the difference was simple, accountability. There is an abundance of people going to the mission fields and knocking on doors to spread the message of Christianity to all in other countries. If someone does the same here though, then you have to look someone in the eye when they see you out at different places. If this person starts attending your church, then they will of course know if you miss a Sunday. So, it’s much easier to minister to someone that will not look to you for support and leadership next week.
A couple months ago I heard the U.S. is now the world’s third largest importer of missionaries.
Apparently, they heard most of us are getting watered down and heretical versions of the gospel, straight from the very pulpits thousands flock to, no less. We get a gospel that that looks like the feel-good, non-offensive, Christ-came-for-social-justice-and-world-peace drivel we find everywhere in the secular world.
What gospel do they hear? That we all deserve hell, that Jesus is the only one true way, that Christ’s followers should expect persecution and even death.
Everyday, they spread the gospel, at risk of life and limb. Meanwhile, we won’t so much as mention anything Christian in the presence of our next-door neighbor, because we don’t want to offend them and/or have them think we are one of _those_ people.