When Feeding Off a Dumpster Is a Thing of the Past

I posted this over at FB this morning:

I saw a little boy eating leftover fried chicken from a KFC dumpster on my drive to work this morning. As I fought off tears, I called to mind the truth that God did not exempt even Himself from the indignities of human life by becoming the God-Man, Jesus Christ. In fact, the suffering that marked His life and death was for the express purpose of making certain a new creation wherein little boys would not have to compete with bacteria for leftover chicken. That heart-wrenching sight on my morning drive is not the end of the story.

Regarding the problem of evil, the Christian does not need to justify God's having decreed evil to be a part of created reality (theodicy) as the proper response but acknowledge that God's ways are not our ways and that, though we cannot exhaustively comprehened God's plan, the epicenter of that plan is precisely the solution to the problem—Jesus Christ, God with us (theophany).

I encourage you to feast on the trust-building and worship-eliciting bread served by Dr. K. Scott Oliphint in this article and in this talk:

The Analogy of Poor Street Kids

Traversing the pathways and hallways of the metropolis, one cannot help but be confronted with the sad sight of children of various ages, in rags that pass off as clothes, pandering services that range from wiping off otherwise clean windshields of phantom grime, hawking sampaguita buds, to just plain begging for scraps and loose change. When I am thus confronted, I think of my own kids.

I noticed that ever since I became a father, my compassion for children underwent a deepening. I cannot look at them without thinking of my own. My heart is ripped from my chest when I see these street kids, and I think to myself that if not for the providence of God, it could have been Sophia and David sticking their faces on side car windows, wide-eyed, with that trademark sad look plastered on to all the more entice the parting of one's negligibles from oneself.

And then I am reminded of God the Father. Is it not the case that when He looks at those whom He has redeemed, He sees His own Son? He, nonetheless, sees our filth, the odiousness of the sin that we have wrapped ourselves in as with tattered rags, and yet His heart is tugged and pulled, and love and compassion are drawn from Him as He hearkens back to His Son, to His dear Son who obeyed Him at every point for the redemption of these pitiful "street kids" called the elect. What a wonderful analogy of the tenderness of a father's heart the Lord has seen fit to present to us in what would otherwise be an unequivocally tragic scene.

I am a poor street kid, adopted into the family of God because of what Christ the Son did on my behalf. At the present time, the stink and dirt of sin still emanate from me, perceivable by the Father. And yet, even as I cry inside for these impoverished children of the cities, longing for the alleviation of their condition but powerless to do anything about it, the Father, in the grandest of scales, feels the same, sees and thinks of His own Son as He sees me, and in fact will do something about it—when I am freed from this mortal coil and clothed with glorious immortality at the coming of Jesus Christ, my Lord, my Savior, my God, my Brother.

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are" (1 John 3:1).

The Way to the Unregenerate's Heart Is Through His Stomach?

While it is certainly the duty of the Christian to do good to his neighbor inasmuch as his capacity allows, there is a predominant view among many that it is the unqualified duty of the Church to help in the alleviation of poverty, and this as a pretext for evangelism.

Are we to extend aid to all the poor? Do we not prioritize the poor brethren over the poor unregenerate?

My pastor, in this excellent article, answers these questions and more.