WHERE CAN I GET A HEART LIKE YOURS?
Bill White of Paramount, California talks about being in Compton, California, working with volunteers from several different churches on a Saturday doing projects to serve the city. At lunch time, he was headed down a narrow side street when he saw dozens of church volunteers (maybe 50 in all), all dressed in yellow shirts, streaming out of one of the sites. They had just completed a makeover of a local house.
Bill was six or eight houses away when he passed a married couple working in their own yard. He paused to compliment the woman on her roses, and she asked him what they were doing down the street. Bill told her that they represented a band of churches united in their desire to serve the city. Then they continued to talk about how that neighborhood had been radically transformed by these Christians' simple acts of goodness.
When the woman's husband saw Bill's yellow "volunteer shirt," he turned off his weed-whacker, set it down and started walking straight towards his wife and Bill. Bill says, "I will never forget his words. After looking into my eyes," Bill says, "he nodded approvingly towards the renovated house down the street and then said, 'I love your heart. Where can I get a heart like yours?'"
Flabbergasted, Bill simply replied, "We got our hearts from Jesus, and he would be glad to give you one like his, too." And before he left, they had a great conversation about the unparalleled gospel of Jesus Christ and his power to change hearts, homes, neighborhoods, and cities.
That's how it's done, my friends. Simply BE who you are in Christ and reflect His love to a dark and broken world.
(From a sermon by C. Philip Green, Living Stones, 5/19/2011)