I've had a mini-revelation of late in my personal views on giving and the Kingdom. As always, it of course came from my good friend John. We were discussing (and initially disagreeing on) an article written from one of my professors on one's mission. In the article, he made the comments that "mature love reaches out to others" and those "others" include the poor, orphans, broken down, can be found in the streest of such and such cities, etc. I liked the article, he hated it. And the reason he hated it is because the author limited the "others" to the poor, and his contention was that the "others" are more than the poor, someone needs to preach to the rich businessmen of the world as well, someone needs to go to Madiso and reach out to the lawmakers, the university teachers, etc. And I agree, which led to our conclusion that whatever heart the Lord has given you, it is your duty to be obedient and go with the calling. We also came to agreement that the church and the world tries to guilt us into buying into what the Lord has spoken to them about, and we feel bad about the poor or the orphans so we help them, though we really don't want to. That's not what Kingdom living is all about. The Scripture "God loves a cheerful giver" isn't there to guilt us into giving and saying that we have to give so we'd better put a smile on our face while doing it, it's more of the attitude of one's heart, that since we are a child of God and since we are a member of His Kingdom and since we have this heart for this mission, we gladly give of what the Lord has given us to then further His Kingdom. John admitted the poor don't really speak to him, and he feels bad about this so he prayed for the poor, but he has a heart for other places, and he feels the Spirit calling him to them. This was really revolutionary in my thinking.

With that, I have also narrowed down what the Spirit is leading me to. I have mentioned in this space quite often that my heart is for the slaves, children/orphans, and those who have not heard the message of Christ. To narrow that down even further, I want to let people know that they are loved and in the words of Josh McDowell, have infined dignity, value, and worth just because they were created and loved by God. Nothing more, nothing less.