09/06/2025
Have you always wanted to be the kind of Christian that is a blessing to others? Perhaps you have seen saints serving in your church and wished you could touch the lives of other people in the same way that they do. Well, don't discount yourself because you may be rippling out blessings at a much higher rate than you think, and having an impact that is being felt far beyond the world around you. Your seemingly small and insignificant faith is being felt on the distant shores of heaven itself!
“Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Luke 15:10
There is a smartphone APP called "Where's George?". The idea is to register a dollar bill within it, and then as other people receive that bill in their change they log on to the APP and enter where they received the bill and by doing so you can track all the places it visits. If you want to try it, go to www.wheresgeorge.com - (but as a disclaimer, I have never done this myself). My point is that the dollar bills in your wallet visit many places and have probably traveled more widely than you could possibly imagine! Yet for the time they are in your possession you see them as just ordinary dollar bills, but once you spend them; off they go again. The good we share with our neighbors is very similar.... When, in our faith, we come into contact with others our blessings travel to them and then are passed along by them.
A few years ago, I had a chance meeting (is it really chance when God has orchestrated it?) at the county refuse center while dumping a load of shrub clippings. As I pulled up to the dumpster marked limbs, I noticed a fellow whose vehicle was loaded down with tree limbs and the entire inside of his car was filled as well. I thought for a moment and then put on my work gloves, walked over to him and said, "It looks like you could use some help!" He responded that he could handle it, but I insisted, and in just a few minutes his load of limbs and brush was in the dumpster. It was then that he noticed the VMI sticker on my truck and as it turned out he had attended the Virginia Military Institute as well. It is a very small college so to run into another alumnus, especially outside of Virginia, is very unusual. He helped me unload my clippings and as we worked, we chatted and exchanged names. With both vehicles offloaded we shook hands and left.
A day later I decided to email a few of my VMI classmates about my chance meeting but wanted to include some information about my new friend... so I googled his name. As it turned out he was the Senior Pastor at a church very near where I attend services. So, I went to their web site, found his email address, and sent him a short note. Within minutes I received a reply from him, he had been trying to find me too, and when unsuccessful, he had told God that if He wanted us to meet He would need to make it happen... we made plans for lunch.
Later that week we met, and over a salad, he informed me that my kindness had told him there was something spiritually special about our meeting. The small blessing of helping him unload his limbs was beginning to branch out, and his church was added to my prayers. From there a select group of my classmates and friends heard the story of our lunch and my good deed branched out again. Via this devotional today, it is now traveling around the world and many people are reading about how a single act of "loving your neighbor" in Nashville Tennessee is now impacting prayers and Christians in many countries and on multiple continents.
An act of kindness, just like the few dollars you give a homeless person to help them buy their dinner, is beginning a journey. You may view what you do as being insignificant, but you never know the lives you have touched nor the impact a small blessing you rendered has made, but Friend, each one has ramifications... because that is the way God multiplies our efforts and glorifies Himself through us. Listen to the words of Jesus...
“He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches."”
Matthew 13:31-32 ESV
So never discount the importance of those tiny things you do for the kingdom of God. Your little sip of water to a thirsty man gushes forth like a river when God increases it.
“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'"”
John 7:38 ESV
It doesn't take much to serve the Lord and to prosper Him. When you prepare for bed tonight think back on any little kindness you shared today, or any mite you gave in His name, and then thank our Father for all He will do with that kind and merciful act.
“Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."”
John 6:28-29 ESV
Jesus told us to first love God, and to then love our neighbor... His words carried power within them, and our taking those words into our hearts allows God's Will to be served through us. Deeds performed in His name and in accordance with these two great commandments can multiply beyond our wildest dreams and expectations…
“Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”.”
Mark 12:29-31 ESV
Prayer:
Father, thank you for taking the small, seemingly insignificant, things we do as we follow Jesus and multiplying them into rivers of living Water. Thank you for revealing their impact to us, but I thank you even more for all the ripples made by our actions that we have no knowledge of. The glory is yours Father as you increase our offering and obedience. Our blessing is in witnessing the good you do once our hand has been withdrawn, and in pleasing you. A simple act of kindness, a chance meeting that allows us to say, “God bless you”, and when we step back, you engage yourself and make this tiny flower bloom profusely in extravagant beauty; a flower passed from hand to hand in this way carries its scent with it as it goes... the incense of our having loved one another spreading far and wide. Praised be your name Lord for expanding your kingdom using the tiny things we do in love and obedience for you as a catalyst for your perfect and boundless will. Holy, Holy, Holy are you our God Almighty, and greatly are you to be praised! Boundless are you as our obedience to your whispers in our ear create ripples of faith in the world that reach far beyond our sight to distant shores where they are magnified and begin another amazing journey as little water bugs race along atop them. Many are the blessings we pass along and blessed are we when you use us each and every day… a kind word, a widow’s mite, a morsel of food, or a quick smile to someone we pass on the street… everything we do as Christians carries spiritual weight and touches lives in ways so great that we lose sight of them, and rarely do we see all they do that blesses others and advances our Father’s kingdom. Holy Father, let me serve you today and all days, and may the wake of my life magnify you throughout the world in this way.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah… Amen!
“For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.”
Hebrews 6:10 ESV
Rich Forbes