Day 2
Outreach is for Everyone.
What does “outreach” look like to you? When we think of outreach, we often think of getting out into the community and doing some type of ministry with music, or even a skit or drama. But outreach is so much more than that. Outreach takes more than effort, it must be driven by compassion. Why compassion? Because compassion is what drives you to reach out to individuals.
What if compassion motivated our actions and efforts?
Compassion helps us empathize with the hurting and broken. Your heart breaks with theirs. Compassion also allows you to see the person through the eyes of Jesus.
If compassion is not a gift you have at the moment, that’s okay. Begin to ask God to fill your heart with compassion. Sometimes when we step out and serve others through outreaches God begins to expose our hearts to a better understanding of compassion.
Deuteronomy 15:11 says, ‘For there will never cease to be poor in the land. “Therefore, I command you, ‘you shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.”’
There will always be people who need Jesus. There will always be someone hurting. There will always be a need to fill. God invites us to step out, with hands open, ready to help.
When we help someone with a physical need, God often uses that as an opportunity to minister to their heart. We just have to be unafraid to take the opportunity to share about the life changing hope Jesus has given us.
Jesus lived out a lifestyle of outreach. He just didn’t provide for the needs of people but cared enough spend time caring for their emotional and spiritual needs as well. He listened to the woman at the well, was unafraid of the leper, rubbed shoulders with those who felt shameful and loved the unloveable.
So do one thing to step out this week, listen to someones story, sit by someone new at church, or begin simply by praying that God would give you compassion for those lost and hurting.
