craigdailypress.com

I was just interviewed by Nikki (on the staff at the Craig Daily Press) about Love INC's Project School Supply and Clothing for Kids programs.

The question that I knew would come up during the interview, and the one I tried to be ready for with an answer worthy of newspaper print, came at the end.

"Why do you think it's important to help our children with school supplies and school clothes?"

I hesitated. I thought about answering the "why" question by saying, "Because I am a follower of Jesus Christ : but I wasn't always."

I knew this would lead to more questions, and I would get to explain that cryptic answer, but when she asked why I think it's important to help the children, my prepared answer didn't seem to fit.

I was suddenly surprised that could be a question.

"Why help the children?"

Hmmm.

Well, I answered her, of course, and with a good answer, but after a lot of thought I came up with the right answer.

This should be the answer for the reason we do what we do in any situation, whether we are helping children in the Yampa Valley or any neighbor in need: our service to others is a "food that endures."

In John 6:27, Jesus is teaching, and He commands us, "Do not work for food that spoils but for food that endures to eternal life."

Other than God Himself, I've only found two things mentioned in Scripture that lasts into eternity: the Word of God and the souls of human beings.

These two areas are where Jesus calls us to involve ourselves. He created us to be eternity-focused and to bear lasting fruit (John 15:16). No genuine investment in them will spoil for they are "food that endures."

When we look back at our hard work, the time and money that we've spent, the difficult decisions that kept us in turmoil, we want to know that they weren't just the "here and now" problems being solved.

We want to be sure that we are not squandering our opportunities to invest in eternal treasures.

We should ask ourselves, "When my time here passes away, what of my work will remain?"

When we invest all our time, talents and energy into the here and now pleasures and problems that surround us, we are falling short of God's purpose for us and miss the abiding joy of kingdom fruitfulness.

We can be sure that investing in the lives of these children by sponsoring them with new school clothes and a new back pack filled with school supplies (and in fact, our reaching out to help any one of our neighbors) will bear fruit that will remain, the "food that endures."