We had a great trip to Ecuador. God spoke some very clear things to us during our week in this beautiful, mountainous South American country. As we worked with children in the cities and with kids served by Compassion International and with the indigenous tribes in the Andes and with our Ecuadorian brothers and sisters in Christ, we kept hearing God ask: “Do you care about the things I care about?” ‘Cuidado’ means ‘care.’
Do you remember the end of the story of Jonah as he sat on a hill pouting about the mercy God had extended to Ninevah? In the heat of the day a vine grew up to give Jonah shade. Then the vine died and the prophet got so upset he said he was ready to die. Here’s what the Lord said in the closing two verses of the book of Jonah: “You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Ninevah has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?”
How easy it is to care more about the temporal than the eternal! Or to make it personal: ‘Do I care more about the things I eat, the place I live, the car I drive, the entertainment I pursue… than the physical and spiritual well-being of the people in my city and around the world?’ We may hesitate to answer this question honestly, but God sees perfectly.
Last Tuesday I was invited to share in a village church in the mountains. Half the audience was made up of our mission team and the other half was made up of the native Quechuan people. Before I spoke, the pastor had asked us not to forget them when we went back home. His simple plea brought some of us to tears as we understood the heart of God regarding an isolated, forgotten people. I tried to encourage the local Christians with the truth of God’s love, but the verse that seemed to speak to us Americans contained a message I must never forget. Ezekial explained the sin of the ancient city of Sodom that was destroyed by fire in the time of Lot and Abraham. “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” (Ezekiel 16:49)
In preparation for our trip to Ecuador we had studied the first two verses of Romans 12. Often we think of ‘God’s will’ in terms of the decisions we must make in life. Certainly we need God’s wisdom to make daily decisions, but it seems there is a deeper meaning in these verses. When we truly give up self and present our bodies as living sacrifices, and when we determine we will not conform to the pattern of this world, then our minds will be renewed and transformed. We will begin to think like God and we will be concerned about the things that matter most to him. When we pursue and obtain the ‘mind of Christ’ we will clearly see the Father’s will… ‘his good, pleasing and perfect will.’ May we fully embrace such abundant living.
“Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:1-2