Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
We can say these words so easily; they roll off the tongue with ease, but do we stop to think of what exactly was meant when these words were first penned by Moses?
If you read the Red Deer Advocate on Saturday, April 13th, the front page carried a very large picture of a young woman named Kiara Annable along with an article named ‘To Save a Life’.
It is a beautiful story about her passion to save the life of a severely malnourished Siberian Husky. The before and after pictures portray a devoted person willing to invest heavily into the life of a dog in order to bring it back from the brink of death. At the same time that she was doing this for the dog, the process produced a healing in her as well. If you get a chance, you really should read it, it is a very touching story.
This story, as beautiful as it is, got me to thinking about Potter’s Hands. I thought about the people we serve on a daily basis and the malnourished, neglected, and damaged lives that they represent. Many are in such rough shape, that they are near death; for that matter, many have already died.
Mathew 10:29-31 I believe places the proper perspective on the value of animals versus people. Both are precious in his sight, and he cares for both, but “You are worth much more than many sparrows.”
In the year 1500, a Prophetess given the name Mother Shipton made these predictions along with many others which have come to pass. She stated as she often did in rhyme, these two comments: ‘Then love shall die and marriage cease, and nations wane as babes decrease.’ And also the following, “And wives shall fondle cats and dogs. And men live much the same as hogs.”
Sad as it may be, she was more accurate than what is easy to accept.
I believe that when Jesus stated that ‘you will always have the poor with you’, he did not say it as a dismissive, but rather that as you are blessed with abundance, you will be required to ‘act justly’ , to ‘defend the poor’, and to ‘feed the hungry’. As a matter of fact, scripture goes so far as to say, ‘True religion acceptable to God is this: that you care for widows and orphans…..’ James 1:27. In other words, look after the well being of those who are unable to help themselves.
Of the Ten Commandments given to Moses, four deal with reverence and love for God, and six deal with our relationships with each other.
Potters Hands is not a real wealthy church, but when viewed in the perspective of world wealth, I would suggest that at least eighty-five percent of us are rated in the top ten percent of the world’s wealthiest! If this does not change our view on what is taught in scripture, we have missed the whole point of what Christ taught.
So as we carry on with our lives; you know, work eat and sleep, shouldn’t we at least take into account the people that we profess to care for? Scripture also tells us that even though the guilt of our sins is paid for, we will be judged for what we did, ‘to the least of these’.
As we feed, cloth, invest in, and house these people, we are given an opportunity to befriend them placing us in a position of trust. Then it is in that trust that we are able to share with them the saving grace offered to them through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. If they then accept and embrace that offer, we have truly saved a life.

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