God’s Delivery System of Choice

“Nobody cares about me.”

The little boy, barely six, looked at the cracked tiles on his kitchen floor as he spoke, swinging feet that didn’t reach the floor from the dining table chair.

“I care about you,” I replied.

“You get paid to care about me,” he answered. Then, looking straight into my eyes he said, “I want someone to love me for nuthin’. Do you get that?”

Yeah, I nodded. I get that.

Love for no reason.

Love when there’s nothing in it for you.

Love because I’m worthy of love.

Love me for nothin’. The whimpering cry of a billion young hearts beating alone. Children and teens who sit at a kitchen tables piled high with junk mail, collection notices, applications for assistance, summons from court, everything but warm food or a clean space for homework or a game of Go Fish.

In the days when Jesus walked the earth, the children of Israel suffered from bitter oppression.

Beneath the heavy boot of Roman rule

Beneath the taxation and corruption of their own people who sold them out to their oppressors for silver

Beneath the unjust, loveless religious rule of men who loved full bellies and flattery more than they loved the God they represented to the carpenters and shepherds who paid pennies for pigeons to sacrifice for their common sins.

Evil was systemic. Corruption epidemic. Despair rampant.

Still, God’s answer wasn’t an army, a coup, a political takeover, or a flood. He didn’t create a program, a system of care, or a political party

His answer was a man

one man

one man who came and loved us.

He loved us – face-to-face, hand-to-wound, eye-to-eye, bellly-to-the-table-sitting-and-sweating-with-us close.

He loved with words. With actions. With truth. He loved large. He loved small. Out of love for the Father and for us, He died to Himself every minute of every day.

Hands-on God. Personal relationship God. One soul at a time you matter because you were my idea in the first place God.

When the Pharisees tried to trick Him into instituting policy, He told them a story about a man they would hate, a Samaritan. This Samaritan found a stranger, robbed and beaten in a ditch, and went out of his way to tend his wounds and provide for his care – personal attention, inconvenient-costly-individual treatment. Love in motion.

Love your neighbor, Jesus told them, is the second greatest command. Love God. Love others.

It’s likely that Heaven celebrates when a program instituted by someone on earth provides care and comfort to thousands of needy people

but I believe there are bells, songs, roaring laughter, and parties when one person walks next door and offers to mow the elderly neighbor’s yard or play catch with the son of the single mom from the small group or bring coffee and a fan belt for his car to the man who just lost his job.

Programs and ministries do good things for people. Professions, politics, and Biblical policies are vital in moving forward the work of Christ on earth –

But nothing demonstrates the love of Jesus to someone better than being loved for nothin’.

Face-to-face

Ball-to-glove

Coffee mug-to-listening ear

Open heart-to-bleeding heart.

Game of Go Fish. Let me check your homework. Love.

Pharisees love the hands clean, hands off, systematic, programatic delegation of love. Love distributed neatly through the proper channels.

Jesus lived an interrupt your day, break into your agenda and stop the presses for a stranger kind of love. Love that was in the way and out of the way. Love that found a way and showed the way. Love that was dirty at the end of the day. Love that got sweat and blood on it.

Love that was in your face and out of the box. Love that touched the loved one in a way that He felt the power drain from Him when it happened.

When was the last time you felt the power drain from you from loving someone?

That little boy is sitting in his kitchen right now waiting for someone to love him for nothin’. What are you going to do about it? “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Matthew 25:40

Are your tired of funneling love through the proper channels? Are you ready to love someone for nuthin’? You are God’s delivery system of choice for the only thing the world needs . . .

How has love touched your life and made a difference? How did one other person love you in a way that made you see Jesus?