In Luke, Christ's first recorded teaching was when He quoted from Isaiah 61. He said, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Isn't it fitting that this was one of Christ's first teachings? Christ taught on some really great things throughout His ministry, but He seems to be making a point that this was His mission. This was the most important thing to Him. He was here to bring the good news, not simply to spiritually elite or to the rich or to powerful people, but to the POOR. He also mentions prisoners, the blind, and the opressed. Basically the rejects of society. And I noticed that all those words there are verbs. He is PREACHING, PROCLAIMING, RECOVERING, and RELEASING. He is not going to just walk up to them and say "I love you! I'm the Son of God." and then call His work done. No,He WAS love. He would never expect them to understand what love was when they had never experienced this type of love. He knew that words without action are meaningless. He showed them what real love is.

It reminds me a lot of how I need to approach ministry. I can't simply walk up to someone on the streets of Africa, tell them that God loves them and say that my work is finished. Of course, proclaiming God's love is important, but more than that, we need to BE God's love. If we are His hands and feet in this world, they will see it. They will come to know this love. They will begin to understand that this love is not simply words in an ancient book. It is alive; it is ACTIVE. It is all about serving the least of these. It is about loosing yourself in Christ so much so that you forget about yourself. As Christians, we are supposed to imitate Christ in all we do, and in everything Christ did, He served everyone around Him, including those who He knew would betray Him, even unto death. And yet, it seems so difficult for me to simply serve those who I am no better than. It is an interesting thing the human heart. How often we take Christ's service for granted when we ourselves can't simply stoop to a level of serving where we might be the slightest bit uncomfortable. It is our priviledge to serve just as Christ did, patiently, humbly, and all consumingly.