2012 A.D.:  Letting the Government Do the Loving of Our Neighbor On Our Behalf

  Christians have a job on Earth.  We follow Jesus the Christ and He gave us instructions concerning what to do until He returns.  We're supposed to tell all mankind about what Jesus did for them, of the New Covenant established by the suffering and shed blood of Jesus, and to tell them about the teachings of that Covenant.

  And one of the chief teachings and foremost marching orders of the New Covenant - of Christianity - is to love our neighbor.

  It is our very own Christian hands that are to serve our neighbor, our very own voices that are to comfort them, our very own time that is to be given to them when we see them in great need.  It's a personal thing.  We can't just throw a few bucks towards a good Christian cause and think we're following Jesus' instructions...that's a little too impersonal, a little too uncommitted.  We are the worker bees, not the chiefs, not the charitable benefactors.  We are the worker bees.  Worker bees labor steadily and humbly in their various capacities of gifting for the betterment of bee-kind.  We Christians do the same thing for humankind...we were lucky enough to find out about Jesus, the one path to salvation for mankind.  So, now we have to reach as many as we can with news of the Lord Jesus, who is their only hope as well. 

  Jesus didn't say to mentally sympathize with our stricken neighbor and throw a few dollars their' way as we live our life pretty much like any non-believer would.  Prayer is great.... always great.... but should our hands be idle after we pray to God that God will help our neighbor?  We are supposed to be that help!  While we ask God to add to it, we are supposed to take a great and immediate personal interest in providing the needed aid our own selves. 

  Probably what is best is if God's eyes see us showing up and pitching in when our neighbor is in need.  Shouldn't we be glad to have the opportunity to show Jesus that we take His teachings seriously, and that we actually are grateful for the very great pain, wrongness, treachery, and humiliation He endured to provide our souls a path by which we may be saved if we commit to it?

  It's good to mentally sympathize and verbally offer comfort.  It's good to help someone financially in their time of need.  But it's better yet to add more to that....to personally provide cheer, humble labor, encouragement, and to donate your own personal possessions where you can.  We all know that's true, right? 

 If you're rebuffed, be accepting of that, but maybe offer again later when they're in a different mood.  The big point that we probably need to remember over and over again is this:  Jesus was ever and always a servant during His ministry.  Ever and always a doer for others even as He was a teacher of others.  And recall, this is the Son of God we speak of.  A greater King of Kings than ever another will be, except for the Father of All whom Jesus always deferred to.

  As for our own disasters, we have to face them with faith.  We can't be bitter towards God, because of this:  If it was for punishment that the disaster struck, we know we are guilty of much sin, and deserving of much punishment.  If it was for testing our faith, we know that Jesus deserves to see that we hold fast to our faith in all circumstances.  If our material possessions are obliterated, we need to show Jesus that we understand that all things in this world are fleeting, temporary, subject to decay, and that it is Christ who is permanent, the Holy Spirit that is permanent, the great Father that is permanent, and our saved souls - if Jesus will grant us salvation - that are permanent.

  If our loved one is killed or greatly injured, it is a time when we can show Jesus that we understand that the person that we lost from our life always had been God's to give, God's to own, God's to call back whenever He wanted them back.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and praise to God for having the power to create a vessel from dust which could house a living soul and God's Spirit in the first place.

  Christians are to do God's loving, in part, upon this Earth.  It's a must for us.  Obeying the commandments of God given to the Christians is not the job of the government.  It is the job of the Christians.  Having towering government bureaucracies respond to emergencies, bureaus that must be constantly maintained and fed at public expense, is necessary if people's fellow man won't come to their aid when it is needed.  Such aid could be organized and stand ready, manned by volunteers, at the local level instead of the Federal.  That's one less government expense we would have to stagger beneath.  And that would be all the more crowns for us on the day we are judged. 

  As a roadside billboard that I passed said (roughly):  "A government big enough to give you everything is big enough to take away everything."

  'Anti-Christ' actual means 'in the place of Christ', not 'against Christ'.  Is it not in the spirit of 'anti-Christ' to replace the things of God, the role of the Christian, with things provided emotionlessly by an all-controlling government?  Christ is our ruler.  The government is our servant.  That is the rightful order of things.  An overgrown, off the leash, arrogant, self-willed government will not die for you, as Jesus did.  It will, in fact, kill you if you get in its way.  You are not its focus once it reaches that state.  Power is then its focus.  And whether knowingly or not, it is not even for itself that it acts, but it acts in the service of God's enemies.  The same is true of us as individuals when we pursue a sinful life.  

 So, if you live near a disaster, why not get a group of your friends together?  Get your family together.  Go by yourself if you have to.  And go there and enquire what you can do to help.  Then do it cheerfully and humbly in Jesus' name.  Think about what things you might want to take that might be gratefully received.  Try, if you can, to make a longer-term sort of commitment to restoring your neighbor's life to normalcy, because lots of help usually shows up for a while, but then people go back to their lives and the disaster zone people are left with an overwhelming amount of work still to do.  Let's love our neighbor as ourselves!  It is good.  It is sometimes fun.  It is God's commandment to us Christian's, not a request to us.  We are servants that have been forgiven of so much sin that we would not otherwise have been able to obtain salvation.  Caring for our neighbor pleases God, and isn't that our job now?

  We are the servants of the Lord.  Servants, not scenery.