Missionaries of Charity Abundant in Spiritual Resources

May 2, 2022

Christians are to be missionaries of charity. God responds to the needy in many ways. One big way is to work through His people. God created, and owns, everything in existence. He is the source of endless physical and spiritual resources. With so many professing Christians, it is feasible to imagine a world where the needy are taken care of without government help and there is no longer a ‘poverty problem’. But that is not reality. In fact, there is a poverty problem and resources seem to be scarce for those who need them. In place of training and equipping missionaries of charity is self-help and prayers without action. Christians are people and get caught up in worldly wisdom and perspective on a daily basis. It is difficult to transform from the world, though it is wise to consistently consider this.

It’s up to You to Recreate and Succeed!

Marshall Pinckney Wilder was an actor in the early 1900’s. He was different, he was born with dwarfism. During his life he refused to be seen as different and he finished his life with many accomplishments and impressive salaries. When he died, Elbert Hubbard wrote that Marshall “picked up the lemons that Fate had sent him and started a lemonade-stand.” Thus, the phrase was coined that when life hands you lemons, make lemonade. There is an anthropocentric assumption in this optimistic view that every person has ability to take the garbage resources around them and make them into something special. People idolize and follow the great succeeders like Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet, and Bill Gates. People love stories about how people like this went from rags to riches. They dug deep in their personal spiritual resources to make their lives wonderful.

Spiritual Resources in God for Giving

Theocentrically, this optimism falls short. God created everything. He knit each person in the womb, he formed and blossomed every lemon and the conditions in which it was formed. God created, and owns, everything and everything He created is good. Resources are not limited to the physical or individual personal discovery. Physical and spiritual resources are revealed to people from God according to His omnisapience and His pleasure. God does not direct people to build an empire for themselves for material self-success. He commands people to love Him and love others. God has commissioned every individual Christian into the body as missionaries of charity. There is value in the lemons of life and those lemons can be used to nourish and heal others.

Lemons are as Good as the Lemonade

There are hard times in life and bad events. If lemons are the representation of that, then when life gives lemons, lean into God. Share the good things of the lemon with others. As missionaries of charity, Christians help others with lemons turn to God for peace, for refuge, and for comfort. Lemonade will not help a person in the long term, but relationship with Jesus, the essence of truth and love, will. Engage with other people of God to encourage them, build character, discover the abundance of spiritual resources, and help the poor by becoming their neighbor. The neighborhood of the needy are comforted by the God who hears the needy and responds. God gifts them righteousness and eternal life. The neighborhood of their adversaries and self-sustainers do not desire God, and God rewards them what they earn.

I have highlighted Motifs in my book, Psalms in Motif Visualization. Here are the highlights that support missionaries of charity and the rewards of eternal abundance.

[ Psalm 112 ]

Praise Yah!
    Blessed is the man who fears Yahweh,
    who delights greatly in his commandments.
His offspring will be mighty in the land.
    The generation of the upright will be blessed.

Wealth and riches are in his house.
    His righteousness endures forever.
Light dawns in the darkness for the upright,
    gracious, merciful, and righteous.
It is well with the man who deals graciously and lends.
    He will maintain his cause in judgment.

For he will never be shaken.
    The righteous will be remembered forever.
He will not be afraid of evil news.
    His heart is steadfast, trusting in Yahweh.
His heart is established.
    He will not be afraid in the end when he sees his adversaries.

He has dispersed, he has given to the poor.
    His righteousness endures forever.
    His horn will be exalted with honor.
The wicked will see it, and be grieved.
    He shall gnash with his teeth, and melt away.
    The desire of the wicked will perish.

[ 2 Corinthians 9: 6 – 15 ]

Remember this: he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. He who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Let each man give according as he has determined in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, that you, always having all sufficiency in everything, may abound to every good work. As it is written,

“He has scattered abroad. He has given to the poor.
His righteousness remains forever.”

Now may he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food, supply and multiply your seed for sowing, and increase the fruits of your righteousness, you being enriched in everything to all generosity, which produces thanksgiving to God through us. For this service of giving that you perform not only makes up for lack among the saints, but abounds also through much giving of thanks to God, seeing that through the proof given by this service, they glorify God for the obedience of your confession to the Good News of Christ and for the generosity of your contribution to them and to all, while they themselves also, with supplication on your behalf, yearn for you by reason of the exceeding grace of God in you. Now thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift!

Honoring Choice

Because God created people in His likeness, with choice, He honors that. Choices are subject to judgement with consequences. Because people are born, and participate, in rebelling against God, people live in a broken relationship with Him. This is why lemons may be viewed as a bad hand, or a bad deal, from an anthropological point of view. But God does not wish that anyone would die against Him forever, so He devised a plan to save people from this death.

People are like seeds in this broken reality. They will die in this life and either continue to die in the next during an eternity of the absence of anything good, or blossom into new life abiding in only good, in Christ. God has done the work through Jesus, Christ; people simply need to receive His gift. When they do, they are enabled as missionaries of charity to tell others about God’s gift.

Think Eternally

Living for this life, turning lemons into lemonade, is a waste of time, it is shallow, and it is a life of death with the mask of a few good times. It drains the spiritual resources of the self to exhaustion. Nothing a person earns in this life materially goes with them. God owns everything and everything He made is to be enjoyed. There is no end to the resources He can provide. The work a righteous person does in this life is giving to the poor, helping the widows and orphans. These are actions of missionaries of charity. Rewards are coming in the next life.

God has provided a way for people to participate in His plan to manifest His glory throughout His good creation. Faith in Jesus births a spirit within a person that is forever. In this life the spiritual resources to accomplish the tasks of missionaries of charity is endless. By the grace of God in the power of the Holy Spirit, anyone can believe and be saved with this new spirit. A seed that dies without the creator is a seed that weeps forever. A seed reborn with the spirit of the creator is a seed born in the Nature of Joy. Righteousness endures forever, every tear is wiped away, and joys will never end.

Resources and Notes

All scripture in this article is from the WORLD ENGLISH BIBLE (WEB). The World English Bible (WEB) is a Public Domain (no copyright) Modern English translation of the Holy Bible. The World English Bible is based on the American Standard Version of the Holy Bible first published in 1901, the Biblia Hebraica Stutgartensa Old Testament, and the Greek Majority Text New Testament.

For more related to this blog, check out my post on Equipping the Saints for Local Missions Truths.

This is a reliable translation, but it is always good to read other translations as well. Biblegateway.com has a multitude of translations to read from. It is a great resource.

Another great resource is Biblehub.com. There are multiple translations, commentaries, and so much more. Great research can be done on this platform.

One more I use regularly is Gotquestions.org. This is a great site to answer questions and find threads of related questions.

There are many resources. The key is that God wants relationship directly with you, the individual. His primary source for revealing who He is and growing in intimacy is His word, the scriptures. Don’t just read for instruction. Analyze and read for understanding. Explore, ask questions, and be transformed in Jesus every moment you possibly can. There is no dispute this is a key desire of God. People are brough to the Father, in the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. This… This is the Nature of Joy.

Jeremy is an author, musician, and business intelligence manager. His mission is to equip and encourage those in Christ, to equip and encourage others in Christ. Jesus, Christ, is the Nature of Joy and melody of the heart. Jeremy unites business analytics (business intelligence), songs, and Scripture for Christian living in the power of the Holy Spirit.