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As Jesus Did

             Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them. He said (Matthew 5:2-3)

And what He said is well known to us all as The Sermon on the Mount. Ministry involves communication. There are ways our ability to speak to others can be improved, but mostly, it involves two things. Love and practice. The love part includes caring enough to have something to say that will help them. Sometimes, we confuse helping them with making ourselves feel superior. They aren’t the same. In this sermon, Jesus doesn’t single out anyone. He’s talking to people, but He’s not exactly talking about people. He’s talking more about human conditions. This doesn’t mean that He never takes anyone to task, but more often than not, He acts as a teacher, not a judge. There are consequences to not correcting an error, but there is time in which to do so. That time is always now.

If we are to follow Him in the conduct of our ministry, we have to be ready to touch the leper, chat with the woman with five husbands or a daughter who is possessed, eat with both Pharisees and tax collectors, heal both Jews and Gentiles, and both love and tell the truth to everyone we meet. And as we deal with the people we encounter our goal, like His, is not to praise them for their cultural identity, but to challenge them to step beyond them and into the truth that God has proclaimed. 

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