Reaching the world with Love and Compassion

ACTS 9:36-40

According to a survey ”Love” is the most abused word in the human culture. Love is a verb, an action word but sadly it’s just remained a word in many lives. Love is not a feeling or a whim, but it is what you do for someone else without expecting anything in return.

In the passage, the focus is mainly on Peter healing Tabitha. But I would like to draw your attention to this simple ordinary woman, Tabitha. She is the only woman in the New Testament explicitly referred by the title “disciple”. She lived her whole life serving the widows in Joppa. In those days in the 1^stcentury, if a woman became a widow and there was no one in the family to take care of her, she would be forcefully abandoned to the streets to live a life of beggary. Tabitha served the widows and she not only gave alms for them, she also knitted clothes for them. Now knitting clothes is a long process and one needs to know the actual size of cloth required for each person. This is essence means that Tabitha was personally involved in each one of their lives whom she served. She went much beyond, than just putting coins and giving money to the widows.  She had immense compassion for the widows and she chose serve them in love with whatever she could.

We are so exited and exuberant to preach the Gospel  to a dying world, but much more than the words we preach is the life we live and the love we exhibit that brings them to the saving knowledge of Christ. Today Love has become an empty word, far from the love that Jesus spoke of in the scripture in Mathew 22:37-39, where it’s written "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is, 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' When we love the Lord, loving others will be a natural overflow of the love we have for God. Tabitha was a faithful follower and disciple of Jesus and she also loved the needy folks in her community which clearly exhibited her walk with Christ to all the women in Joppa.

We live in the times, where the world desperately seeks a saviour and is craving for love and acceptance. The little we could do to make this world a better place is by sharing some real love and leading the lost and perishing to the biggest lover of their souls ‘Jesus’.

Paul Samuel

Paul is serving as the Worship Coordinator of Crossway Church in New Delhi, he can be reached at musicbuff99@gmail.com