‘Then He will answer them, saying, “Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.”’ Matthew 25:45 NKJV
The Bible teaches that one day God will evaluate and reward each of us according to how we treat those around us who are hurting and needy. And that’s why you need to get serious about helping them.
Thomas Barnardo believed that, and he became one of the great Christian heroes of the 1800s. During his work among the poor and homeless in London’s East End, he built a home for destitute children that housed 400 boys and girls. He turned the Edinburgh Castle Gin Palace and Music Hall into the Coffee Palace, a centre for evangelistic and Christian activities. He built a village for girls that served more than 9,000 of them during his lifetime. In all, more than 60,000 children benefited from the vocational training centres and homes he built.
In extreme cases where he found children in the hands of cruel people, he would ‘abduct’ them—a policy which, where parents were involved, was against the law. But he felt bound by a higher law—God’s law. This made him vulnerable to criminal charges and bitter custody battles, but eventually the law of the land was changed, not Barnardo.
His successful ‘graduates’ included lawyers, doctors, musicians, naval commanders, businessmen, and colonial ministers of state, all of whom had once been destitute and were rescued. How do you change the world? Starting today, you can do it—one life at a time.
SoulFood: 2 Kings 24–25, Luke 1:11–25, Ps 73:17–28, Pr 13:20
The Word for Today is authored by Bob and Debby Gass and published under licence from UCB International Copyright ©