Do you have a nature to care?

Artificial Intelligence is a new and interesting subject. It helps me make the point that caring is more about our 'nature' than just what we say or do. There needs to be a spiritual connection with God and with people.

Algorithms can take a little information from my blog, merge it with "its" knowledge and write something that sounds exactly like what I would have written. But would it have a soul? Would it have a spiritual connection with God and benefit from God's anointing over the my caring thoughts, feelings, prayers and actions? 

Their is a source of love that cares.

There is an unseen and immeasurable aspect to being a caring person and offering a ministry of care.  It is the Source of care that produces a 'nature' of care in the life of the person who believes in and follows the Source -- God. The new 'nature' comes from the interaction between God and a person.

God is love. He loves us. When we receive his love, we are loved. Then his love flows through us.

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.

Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love...

This is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us and  sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Dear friends, since god so loved us, we also ought to love one another...

We love because he first loved us.."

I John 4:7,8,10, 11, 19

Therefore, people of faith should be people who love and care for others. God performs a work inside of us to help us care for others. If we notice we don't care for others, we don't need to try to care more or fine tune our behavior so we have more caring actions. We need to start with the source of love and caring and ask him to give us the nature to love others as we are loved.

Care Ministry is about more than addressing the needs of people.

Care Ministry involves discovering the God who cares and letting His compassion flow through us in our actions toward others.

In 2020, as Covid was first affecting ministries, agencies, hospitals and every outlet of people service and care, I looked for answers to see how pastors, priests and ministries conducted themselves during previous pandemics. New to pandemics, I chose the one I had heard of the most, The Black Plague. I was drawn to the Reformer, John Calvin, who pastored through five out-breaks of the Black Plague during his pastoral ministry in Geneva, Switzerland.

My readings led me to Calvin on the Christian Life: Glorifying and Enjoying God Forever by Michael Horton. Known for His theology on the sovereignty of God, I was pleased to see how the expression of Calvin's theology flowed out into compassion and care for others. It should not have surprised me, but it was a part of His ministry that I did not know about. His words describe what I have felt as the application of my theology has progressed in my passion and participation in care ministry.

“Because we truly feed on Christ in the Supper, we are drawn ‘both to purity and holiness of life, and also to charity, peace and concord’ with each other… We will take care that none of our brethren is hurt, despised, rejected, injured, or in any way offended, without our, at the same time, hurting, despising, and injuring Christ...; that we cannot love Christ without loving our brethren; that the same care we take of our own body we ought to take of that of our brethren, who are members of our body; that as no part of our body suffers pain without extending to the other part, so every evil which our brother suffers ought to excite our compassion. Grace leads to gratitude—a thanksgiving toward God that turns us outward to our brothers and sisters and then also out to our neighbors, whoever they may be… The one who wants to love God can do so by loving the believers…Because God serves us, we can serve our neighbors.”

(Pp140-142)

Christian theology, as described by Calvin, is a robust expression of love freely received and freely given.

If we lack love for others, we must first draw close to God, confessing our cold heart, removing any barrier, and asking for a new experience of God’s forgiveness and love. When we are full of God’s love, care for the needs of others will follow.

One of the beauties of a care ministry is it continually takes us to new and deeper experiences of God’s love as we question suffering and wrestle with our love and care for others.

To love without God  will still bear good fruit because of the value of love and care.  We can be thankful for his prevenient grace. But the capacity will be limited to human ability and horizontal understanding.

We live with wars, grief, crime, abuse, sickness, addiction and human suffering beyond comprehension.

This is our time in history, as faith-based care ministries, to embark on a spiritual adventure without limits.

With the strong theology of Calvin and the Reformers, they could sacrificially minister through a catastrophic pandemic and offer extreme care. Then they preached a strong message of repentance and holiness. It is why their ministry did reform the culture and continues to influence ministry nearly 500 years later.

So as you apply your life to effectively caring for people during times of great need,  you will be rewarded with much more than you can even imagine, if you develop a foundation of Biblical theology.

You will experience the source and reason for care as God works in giving you a new nature. The He will work through you to care for others so they experience His love. You will be engaging with God and with people and are doing divine work with eternal rewards. When you care, it matters, much more than you can measure.

The new nature produces new actions.

"You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free.

But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh[a]; r

ather, serve one another humbly in love.

For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command:

“Love your neighbor as yourself...

So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh... 

The acts of the flesh are obvious…

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

gentleness and self-control.

Against such things there is no law.

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”

 Galatians 5:13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 22-25a

Have you received a new nature?

Scripture teaches there is an old nature, often called the flesh, and there is a new nature called the spirit.

Confessing your sins, receiving Christ as your Savior, and following Hm in baptism begins an amazing journey. Receive the new nature.  When you receive Jesus’ work on the Cross to pay for your sins, God, at that time, gives you a new nature, a new identity, and His Spirit to live in you making you spiritually alive. You are born again and made new.

With this new nature you will have an appetite for and an ability to enjoy God’s presence and relate to Him personally. Scripture, prayer and worship become meaningful. You will grow to know Him as you are known by Him. You will become aware that He has made you with a design, sees you, pays attention to you, cares for you, equips and disciplines you according to His good and perfect plan. That will satisfy your deepest needs more than anything else will.

Enjoying His love with your new nature will also awaken your love for others and give you the energy to care for them.

If your nature is of the flesh, caring for other people will be difficult. Sometimes it will be acting in a caring way but with the wrong motives. God often works despite our shortcomings, but he wants to purify our hearts and perfect our actions.

When you receive Jesus’ work on the Cross to pay for your sins, God, at that time, gives you a new nature, a new identity, and His Spirit to live in you making you spiritually alive. You are born again and made new.

With this new nature you will have an appetite for and an ability to enjoy God’s presence and relate to Him personally. Scripture, prayer and worship become meaningful. You will grow to know Him as you are known by Him. You will become aware that He has made you with a design, sees you, pays attention to you, cares for you, equips and disciplines you according to His good and perfect plan. That will satisfy your deepest needs more than anything else will.

From your new nature will come the love for others and the energy to care for them.

If you do not care about others, you need to first check your relationship with your loving God.  Your willpower and training to care will have minimal or no results without a healthy new nature.

The health and vitality of your new nature will mature and grow in an ever-increasing capacity and ability to know Him and allow His Spirit to flow through you so that you will love and care for others as Jesus does. That will be effective caring.

Take an inventory. Say a prayer.

Have you admitted your need for Jesus work on the Cross? Have you seen and/or felt evidence of something new inside of you?

What can you do to live and grow in your new nature?

“Almighty God, my Father, I call upon You and request of You that Your love may be found in me Your servant. I know not how to love as I ought; but You who are Love can reveal it unto me. Show me the way to Love. Amen.”

Disciplines of the Inner Life, BenSon & BenSon, p. 327