By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
(1 John 3:16-18)
This, along with many other scriptures, has been transforming our thinking about ourselves, our brothers, and our own possessions. We live in a time when the needs of our brothers across the globe are right before our very eyes.
There are native missionaries who travel throughout the unreached villages of India, crossing cultures in their own country and facing intense persecution, in order to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. Men and women in Muslim countries, lose their jobs, their possessions, and very often their lives for the sake of Christ. In North Korea, God's children are the last to receive food rations, and are subject to the most extreme persecution perpetrated in the world today.
Thanks to ministries such as Gospel For Asia, Voice of the Martyrs, Open Doors, and HeartCry Missionary Society, we have access to stories of great triumph in hostile places where the name of Christ is held in scorn. And we have access to the stories of faithful believers who do not earn a steady income, because it is more profitable to them to make known the name of Christ. So, after a day of laboring in the harvest fields, they put their hungry children to bed, urging them to drink more water as a way of relieving the pain of too little food.
We have come to believe the Word of God, and if we ignore these, the needs of our brothers, how can the love of God be in us?
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