THE CHRISTIAN’S RESPONSIBILITIES TO OTHER CHRISTIANS (Romans 12:6-10)

If I were to ask you if you had a responsibility to meet the needs of your family, most of us would say, absolutely.  When our family is in need, we will respond.  

If I were to ask you if you had a responsibility to meet the needs of the world, most of us would say, that depends on what you mean by meeting their needs.  The world is a pretty needy place and it is unlikely that we have the means or the resources to meet the needs of the world.  

Somewhere in-between these two extremes there are other groups that we could point to and ask the question of whether or not we are responsible for meeting the needs of that group. Yet, even with most of these groups, I would expect your answer to be, it depends.  It might depend on how you feel about the various groups, or it might depend on the level of resources you have.

What if I were to change the question to, do you believe that God has mandated that you meet the needs of these various groups, what do you think the answer should be?  In my opinion, the answer is again, it depends, but this time the critical deciding factor for whether or not we march forward, is not what we decide is important, but what God has told us to do.  If it is God’s will that we do something, then resources and our feelings about that group do not matter.  We will have all of the resources we need.  

Our lesson today is about how we use the spiritual gifts that God has given to each of us to meet the needs of our fellow Christian brothers and sisters.