Women’s Connect Devotion – January
Take a few moments, slow down, sit with the Lord, and enjoy this encouraging devotion from our Women’s Ministry Team member, Jesse Frederickson. We pray it encourages your heart and inspires deeper connections for you in your life in Jesus. Let’s seek Him in this New Year and how He may be drawing us to the ‘outcasts’ in our circles, neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces. May Jesus be our true treasure, now and always. May our hearts be aligned with His heart. We ask that you would break our hearts for what breaks yours, Lord. Everything we have for Your Kingdom!
Blessings,
Rachel Greene
Being a low-church Protestant denomination, we usually don’t bring up saints. But there is one whose deed we should reflect on. Saint Lawrence was a deacon in Rome in the 3rd century, at a time of severe persecution against Christians from the Roman Empire. He was in charge of administering the church budget, specifically to help the poor. According to the legend, when the church leaders were arrested, the Roman officials requested that Lawrence surrender the church treasures to the government (some stories promising his freedom if he did so). Lawrence agreed but asked that he’d be given three days to gather the treasures. During those three days, he handed the finances over to trustworthy stewards then assembled the sick, poor, disabled, widows, and orphans. When the time came to hand over the money, Lawrence presented the people to them and said, “These are the treasures of the Church.”
The Bible makes it clear that God loves the outcast, and because He loves the outcast, we as the Body of Christ have to share this same love. God’s treasure needs to be our treasure. Luke 12:35 says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” While the context of the verse is serving and giving onto the Lord by helping the poor, it’s true that where we put our treasure- whether it be money, time, resources- is where our heart is. It’s easy to say that the Church’s treasure is the disabled (or any outcast group) and that we love them, but is it true? Are our actions and attitudes showing this truth? If we were to present the Church’s treasure, like Lawrence, can we truly present the disabled as the Church’s treasure?
This past year, have you treasured the outcasts of society as Christ does? Was it solely words or sharing a post on social media, or have you actually made the time to sincerely treasure the outcast? Think of ways you can treasure the outcast this year and follow through.
~Jesse