You welcomed me...

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
(Matthew 25:35 ESV)

I work with people, and I would love to say I lived this verse out...but I don't. In many ways I am a loner, a hermit. I like to be by myself. I enjoy quiet. I enjoy stillness. It energizes me.

But when I am around others, I like to know that others want me there. When we welcome another person, when we share and show love to our fellow man we are doing the work God put us here to do. The words above were spoken by Jesus. He said that when we do these things for others it is as if we are doing them for Him.

I know one group of people that wants to be welcomed more than any other...the middle school student. They want to know they are known, seen...important. That someone cares who they are just the way they are. That someone knows their name and is glad to have them there.

Of course I guess we all are that way :-)

And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
(Matthew 25:40 ESV)

The great thing about Jesus is this...He is God (and God in all his "hugeness" is beyond anything we can ever begin to comprehend.) And yet Jesus did not think of equality with God as something to cling to, gave up his divine privileges; and was born as a human being.

and then He humbled himself and died a criminal’s death on a cross....because He wanted to welcome us...

welcome us and bring us back to God.

Oh that I might welcome others the way He has welcomed me