Challenged?

So many christians are "challenged" to test God by just giving 10 percent of their money, every Sunday. Well, the Mosaic command of Repetitive Tithing (Abraham did it once, Jacob for a season) pales in comparison to the "challenge" to (Luke 9: 23) "...renounce [yourself] and take up [your] cross every day and follow..."

"For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyonw who loses his life for my sake, that man will save it. What gain, then, is it for a man to have won the whole world and to have lost or ruined his very self?"

Tithing is a "challenge" to your faith? You get up and talk about how you, "... just went out on faith and did it. And look! It works!" You cite financial blessings of plenty as the proof! well Jesus has a real challenge for you: 100%!!!!!!!!!! find a heart for the poor. Love Jesus! Lose your stuff. Crash it on the rocks of your desire to REALLY EXPERIENCE Jesus...

It's fine that you participate in programs to do something about the problem of poverty. But Jesus is calling you to FRIENDSHIP WITH... neighborhood with...

It would cause a revolution in our society if the followers of Jesus would begin to just learn the names and stories of people who live around them, not for entertainment, but for prayer...

...and have you noticed that the POOR are favored? That it's about dropping our status DOWNWARD, from the heart, outward... Joel says, "rend your hearts and not your garments..." Matthew 25 leaves us a clear call. Inescapable.

In 2 Cor.8:9 it says, "Remember how generous the Lord Jesus was: he was rich, but he became poor for your sake, to makke you rich out of his poverty."

We are called to follow that example. Let's stop trying to help the poor out of our affluence! Let's do what Jesus did. The Law reached down and offered a ladder to us that we could never climb. But the grace and truth that came through Christ... He got UNDER us and lifted us, like a stretcher! We were DEAD! When we attempt to serve Jesus by our "Largess", that is, big programs that treat the big picture, we almost invariably compromise our call to really LIVE with them! We visit them that way, spending to stop the problem. But love gets into the neighborhood and bleeds along with. Not for the faint of heart.