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The roadmap lines on her aged face were as deeply etched as the convictions in her heart. Her natural beauty long since faded, she nevertheless radiated an inner strenght and beauty that is a rare find indeed. It was an inner fervor born of compassion, and a beauty stemming from the sweetness of a soul touched by the hand of the Savior.

Truely, it was the hand of the Savior who guided her gnarled hands; hands accustomed to toil, squalor, and misery. Yet they were hands of mercy, compassion, hope, and salvation. Mother Teresa: the hand of Jesus extended to the lowest of the low, yet one of the greatest Saints to epitomize His grace, humility, and love.

“Let the poor…eat you up,” she said. May we be consumed with the same compassion-that of our Lord’s heart for the lost and needy in our world.

We all know who Mother Teresa was. We admire her for her selflessness and ardent compassion for the suffering and poverty-stricken of Calcutta; we applaud her courage and convictions. We affirm her place as a heroine among saints, a unique individual with a unique call and even more unique dedication.

But should compassion for the poor (or anyone who suffers for that matter) and a willingness to come to their aid with the love of Jesus be so unique for followers of Christ?

Should compassion for the poor be unique among Christians, or uniquely Christian?

Can I be honest with you? Suffering bugs me. I’m not talking about my own personal suffering (which bugs me alot…if what minor discomforts I experience can actually be called suffering), but it’s the plight of others that really gets to me. Peoples’ suffering really affects me more than just feeling uncomforable or awkward. Many times I feel helpless to help, dumbfounded as what to say, and overcome emotionally by their difficulty. And to be painfully honest, at times I feel put out and worried about how much time compassion is going to cost me.

What is it about me that makes someone else’s suffering about me?

And, am I alone in this?

I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like to suffer as many do, but I do know what it is to be self-centered. And the best wasy to cure being me-focused is to become others-focused…and that happens when first, I become Jesus-focused.

If I’m going to truly follow Jesus, then I’m going to go where He goes, love whom He loves, care for whom He cares, and give of myself just as He did, and still does…through us!

The thing that makes Believers Fellowship Church uniquely Christian is not our religious rhetoric, but our selfless love for others and the willingness to have the poor eat us up, as we humbly and gratefully follow Jesus.

“I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.”  - Mother Teresa

I bet you didn’t even know you had a choice, did you. Well, you do and so do I, and I’m just not doing it; I’m just not going to participate in any recession.  It’s not that I’ve decided to stick my head in the sand, but that I’ve realized I have options and I’m exercising mine.

First, you need to know that I’m not an economist, and I have never been formally trained in that area. However, like you, I am an economist of sorts because I do participate in this economy, experiencing its impact on a daily basis, and while doing so, I’ve made some observations… 

Absolutely, food costs more. Housing has slowed down (some would say, evened out after a prolonged season of unreasonably high accelerated appreciation coupled with stupid lending practices). Pizza joints are threatening to raise delivery charges, and the value of my pickup is going down while the price of scooters and bicycles are going up. I did recently download some music from iTunes for .99 though…at least there’s a smidgen of hope.

And you bet I get irritated at the price of gas; almost as irritated as I get with those Ameri-Euro wannabe noobs that find joy in Americans “finally” having to pay exorbitant fuel prices; “just as the Europeans have been doing for years.” The argument continues that maybe now we will cut back our fuel usage and stop “consuming, consuming, consuming!” I bloody well doubt it.

I admit that fossil fuels are finite in quantity, and I’m convinced that we can come up with more environmentally favorable alternatives, but the price of fuel isn’t so much about supply and demand as it is about the value of the dollar against the Euro, or any other currency for that matter.

As far as consuming, consuming, consuming goes, we are a consumer nation with a consumer economy. We don’t make anything here anymore, except military tech., cars and credit. So for our economy to work we have to buy stuff, eat out a lot, and pay people to do things for us so we can work the extra hours necessary to pay for the stuff we want to consume.

But, all of our manufacturing, and I-service industries have long since packed up and shipped off to the third world. So now we have to import most of what we consume and send our credit card generated wealth overseas. As a nation we go deeper into debt and the world goes deeper into our collective pockets. It’s the new twist on the redistribution of wealth.

Add to that the fact that we are going broke policing the world and rather than paying down the national debt, we’re printing more money and giving each taxpayer a stimulus check that we can use towards that imported 56” HD screen with the name we’ve never heard of, and are going to charge at the nearest box store.

Oh, yeah, it’s also a political season so the doomsday economic rhetoric is in full swing…because perception is reality, and…if you get enough people crying, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” even if the sky is securely in place, you will eventually start the masses running for cover. However, some of the candidates did suggest rolling back the federal excise tax on gasoline for the summer; that’s sure to keep the RVs, jet skis, power boats and family vans going this season, if not the economy to any appreciable extent.

So, viewing the economic picture, some see the harbinger of recession; you can dance to that tune if you want, but I’m going to sit it out, and here’s why…

It’s really quite simple. Trusting Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I am now part of the Kingdom of God with all of its rights, privileges, benefits and responsibilities. The simple fact is that the God of that Kingdom has an economy and His Kingdom is not impacted or affected by anything in this world.

Quite the opposite is true; God’s Kingdom rule is continuously bringing its benevolent influence to bear on this world and its people. You see that in answered prayers; people experiencing God’s miraculous intervention in healing, needs being met in spite of economic circumstances, jobs provided, key insight and wisdom given at the precise moment needed, etc.

Further, God’s economic principles of generosity, sowing and reaping (giving and receiving), benevolence, wise credit use, sound financial planning, shrewd investing, honesty, integrity, coupled with faith in His ability and willingness to provide all we need are all simultaneously working on the believer’s behalf regardless of (and in spite of) our natural economy.

So I’m not going to participate in the recession (if, indeed that’s what this is), and rather than pulling my hair out over inane economic politics, kicking the gas pump for spinning too quickly as it tallies up dollar after dollar, cursing the eco-warriors of our time for not letting us drill in Anwar, or blaming the Chinese for wanting their rather large slice of the American pie (which we served up warm and fresh on a silver platter), I’m going to actively participate in God’s economy and trust Him to help me survive this one.

Believers Fellowship is excitingly different. We are passionate in our love and worship of Christ and down to earth in our preaching and Christian life.

You’ll quickly discover that we are a family, rich with relationships that matter. Growing together, we worship, we serve, we laugh, we cry, we learn, and we reach out to our world with life-transforming truth!

It’s our passion to share the love of God by communicating the Gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone in our community and as a member of this community to be a place of healing, restoration, compassion, forgiveness, hope and equipping for all.

Refreshingly different, passionately alive, surprisingly relevant.

Find yourself at BFC.