I mentioned a few weeks ago that when we call Jesus “Lord” it should change the way we live, the decisions we make, the politics we hold, and the way we use our time and resources.  The Risen Life is not a series of prohibitions, but a call to live like redeemed people.

Are you at a loss for ways to help?  If there can be 50 shades of gray and 50 ways to leave your lover, there must be at least 50 ways to help others in a far more redemptive way than those.   I have compiled 50 suggestions and you are welcome to add your own ideas via comment here or on Facebook.

Why should we help others?  Because when we do, we are serving Jesus.

Matthew 25: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

 The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'” (Matthew 25:40)

Oftentimes, we’ll hear people talk about donating time, talents, or treasures to help those in need.  These general areas show how we can—in large and small ways—share our Risen Life with others.  Here are 50 ways:

1. Volunteer your time to be a Christian mentor, or a Catholic or Jewish Big Brother or Sister.
2. Serve at a food pantry sponsored by a local church or Christian organization.
3. Organize or staff a bake sale, plant sale, or rummage sale to benefit Christian missions or poverty reduction.
4. Volunteer at a women’s shelter or help to prevent human trafficking.
5. Pray for those in the persecuted church, the imprisoned, the terminally ill, and the unemployed.
6. Provide meals to the homeless through PADS or other emergency relief group, serving up compassion at a local shelter.
7. Visit prisoners and teach Bible studies there.
8. Work on a Habitat for Humanity home.
9. Befriend your neighbors and invite them to come to church events.
10. Pray for Israel.
11. Provide babysitting to teen moms so they can attend Bible studies.
12. Drive the elderly to doctor’s appointments or bring them to church.
13. Go on a mission trip to provide medical care or engage in poverty reduction efforts among the poor.
14. Pray for your elected leaders.
15. Volunteer for Vacation Bible School and early childhood ministries.
16. Mow the lawn or shovel snow for someone who is sick
17. Design “fashions with a conscience,” raising awareness, and donating the proceeds of those items to help rescue children out of the sex trade.
18. Write and send greeting cards to the sick, the lonely, and the bereaved.
19. Knit hats for premature babies, make quilts for cancer patients, or volunteer at your local hospital or nursing home.
20. Engage in literacy programs or teach English as a second language.
21. Begin a blog or write letters to the editor upholding Christian values of compassion, love, and mercy.
22. Adopt-a-Highway in the name of your Christian group and engage in regular care for the roadside cleanup.
23. Use your business skills (e.g. legal, accounting, fundraising, program implementation, etc.) to benefit a parachurch or charitable ministry.
24. Run for public office and bring Christian virtues to policy decisions.
25. Sponsor and coach a youth basketball team in the inner city or in a poor neighborhood.
26. Write songs and perform music in a benefit concert or to raise awareness for a Christian cause.
27. Use your technology background to develop web sites, do analytics, and help to bring charitable organizations into full utilization of social media.
28. Organize or sponsor a Christian group to walk or run in a charity event for special needs children, natural disaster relief, or for victims of tragic events.
29. Give free haircuts to the poor once a month.
30. Get involved with Doctors without Borders or provide free dental care to the poor.
31. Teach business, technology, or entrepreneurial skills to those living in poverty.
32. Adopt a child or become a foster parent.
33. Become a Christian venture capitalist who provides start-up funds to train and then help former convicts start legitimate businesses that will hire other former convicts.
34. Train or coach others on how to use their skills and abilities for God’s glory, multiplying our efforts.  Organizations like Scholar Leaders International train pastors to multiply Christian efforts overseas.
35. Participate in urban gardening programs to bring children into a caring community before they become involved in gangs.
36. Supervise a disabled child or handicapped adult to give a caregiver a break for an hour each week.
37. Offer career counseling or job placement to the chronically unemployed.  Better yet, give them a job and train them with the skills they need to move forward.
38. Repair cars or provide no-interest vehicle purchase opportunities for single moms.
39. Read, listen, or see events around you for ways you can help others: holding doors, helping people across the street, offering your seat to a person with limited capabilities, or letting women with crying babies ahead of you in line.  Never underestimate the witness of small acts of kindness.
40. Donate furniture, clothing, and household items to Christian organizations like Love, INC, and the Salvation Army.
41. Get involved with Samaritan’s Purse as a disaster relief volunteer, as a provider of ducks and chickens, etc, and participate in annual events such as Operation Christmas Child.
42. Provide a scholarship for a wounded serviceman, police officer, or firefighter to get education and new employment possibilities.
43. For every dollar you donate to an alma mater or arts or education foundation, donate a dollar to assist someone in poverty have access to clean drinking water.  Make your donations make a real difference for the Kingdom.
44. Sponsor a Compassion International child or through another Christian organization.
45. Support missionary efforts through parachurch ministries like Hands and Hearts, International to provide medical and poverty reduction care to the poorest of the poor.
46. Donate money to help organizations such as Wellspring Living to rescue and restore girls who have been victims of sex trafficking.
47. Take every dollar you would have spent on lottery tickets and spend it to provide food for a Christian food pantry or give to an organization like Food for the Poor.
48. Donate Bibles through the Gideons to put in hotel drawers to offer hope to those in crisis.
49. Support Catholic Charities through financial donations.
50. Partner with Christians at your local church to provide funds for church-sponsored projects.

 What ways will you add…?

Matthew 14:14 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick. 15 As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.” 16 Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” 17 “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered. 18 “Bring them here to me,” he said.

Did you catch it?  “You give them something to eat.”  Imagine the disciples’ surprise at being commanded to feed such a multitude!  They probably felt the same helplessness that we feel when we hear in Romans 12:13 “Share with God’s people who are in need.”

Of what help can my contributions possibly be toward the magnitude of the problems facing the planet?  The disciples looked at what they had in the physical realm (loaves and fish) and a hungry multitude.  What did Jesus say to them?  “Bring them here to me.”

Our material possessions can go only so far to help the poor.  Make no mistake, it is right and proper for us to help those in need.  But note that Jesus didn’t say, “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day.  Teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.”  Nope.  That’s humanity trying to solve humanity’s problems, which are well-intentioned efforts, but sadly, they are inevitably flawed ones.  Give and create a dependent.  Teach and create a defiant self-reliant.  Jesus wants better than that.  He wants disciples.  So He says, “Bring them here to me.”

Jesus takes the loaves and fish and does a miracle.  What is humanly impossible, God does by multiplication.  He takes what little we can give and when we bring what we have to Jesus, then the Son of God multiplies our efforts for His glory.  The greatest glory isn’t in a full stomach for a meal, but in full redemption for an eternity.  It doesn’t mean we ignore the physical needs, but it does mean we see them in light of the greatest glory.  The greatest glory is not in loaves or fish.  It is in disciples, taught to rely upon God.

Notice the truth that Jesus speaks here: John 6: 24 Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus. 25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” 26 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

We should always be on the lookout for how the physical needs of others can be God’s means of our bringing them to Jesus.  Then we will be Living the Risen Life by Sharing—in all the best possible ways.

It can be said that in the Bible, God reveals Himself to us; but in our prayers, God invites us to a relationship and fellowship.  How often we forego the very blessing of reading the Bible.  After all, God is taking the opportunity to tell us about Himself, His ways, and His will.

But when we do not pray, we forego the joy that comes from worship.  We forego the peace that comes from presenting our concerns before God and asking Him to come to our rescue.  We forego the wisdom He alone gives, and we forego the comfort of His love.

Has your prayer life become a dry ritual?  Or have you abandoned a vibrant prayer life in favor of a quick blessing before the food gets cold?  Come to your Father.  His arms are open to gather you and hold you close and to be in relationship with you.  Pull up a chair to the table of fellowship and invite Jesus–through prayer–to be near to you always.  That way you can be Living the Risen Life, Faithful in Prayer.

When we are Living the Risen Life, stuff happens.  And it’s in the stuff that we come to see whether we’re living as redeemed people or whether we’re just putting on a good act.  Redeemed people are patient in affliction.

In Romans 5:2-5, it reads, “And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”

Yesterday we were joyful in hope, today we’re patient in affliction.  The two are connected.  I have been through my share of stuff and used to joke that if suffering produces character, well, I’m quite a character!

Eventually, the humor wore off and I got tired of all the bad stuff that happens.  That’s when Living the Risen Life encouraged me to be patient in affliction.  Why?  Because that’s when the comfort of Christ is mine, too!

Are you suffering today?  If you call Jesus “Lord,” be patient in affliction and you, too, will know the comfort Jesus died to give us.  He is the God of all comfort for those Living the Risen Life, Patient in Affliction.

On this day after the Boston Marathon bombing, I extend my prayers on behalf of the families of those are suffering loss and injury.  It’s hard to schedule today’s post and I’ve rewritten part of it to be sensitive to their pain.  But in another sense, Living the Risen Life–particularly when we face immense suffering–offers the opportunity to be reminded of the distinction between happiness and joy.

Let’s face it: happiness is fleeting.  It’s a surface condition that the winds of change and the storms of life can disturb.  Storms of life can be ones such as yesterday’s horror that everyone recognizes and in which we all feel your pain to some degree.  But storms can also be events that are still significant even if less visible on the news: like losing a job or an account; gaining weight despite your best efforts; getting yelled at by a family member, neighbor, or boss; seeing a Facebook status that ruins your day; watching the nightly news; or receiving a bad health report.  Any of these things in addition to hearing news that is tragic about someone you love can cause any of us to have our happiness vanish.

Joy, on the other hand, comes from knowing the powerful love of God and having the assurance of salvation.  This is secured to the Rock of Ages and cannot ever be shaken. Our circumstances may not be happy and our season of life might not feel like happiness, but let’s always remember that joy is different.  It’s deep in our souls and it cannot be taken away.  Not ever.

Not ever…now that’s the stuff of hope!

Furthermore, because our hope is not resting on some transient happening in our circumstances, we are able to experience joy even in the times when our happiness is stripped away.  Jesus said in John 16:22 “So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.”

Has someone or something stolen your happiness for now?  They can’t take your joy.  Know this rock solid kind of life Jesus died to give us!  Know the hope of eternal life.  Jesus came and lived and died to offer us forgiveness and make it possible for us to be Living the Risen Life, Joyful in Hope.

Ever felt like giving up?  I do all the time.  Nevertheless, it’s always too early to throw in the towel on doing good things.  No matter where we are in our Christian walk, we must press on diligently, just as Jesus said, if we’re going to call Jesus “Lord.”

You see, the Christian life isn’t just a bunch of Don’ts or How Dare You’s.  It’s a lifetime of Dos—of doing good things!  Today, we see that diligence in doing good is required for Living the Risen Life.  We’ve seen diligence before.  It was previously in the passage from Romans 12:11, but there, it was called zeal, coupled with spiritual fervor.  But it’s the same Greek word with different nuance in the range of meaning.

Diligence is putting one foot after the other, keeping busily about our work, not letting distractions drag us off track or off task, and not letting discouragement get the better of us.  It’s a dedication to the work to be done whether or not anyone acknowledges what we are doing.  That’s because while people might not notice our work, God always does.  More than simply noticing, God does not forget.  That’s because to God, it’s evidence of your love for Him when you help others.  So we persevere, faithfully doing good and showing love to God and others as our mission on earth.  This is how we can be Living the Risen Life with Diligence.

Frankly, celebrity is getting out of hand in the United States.  Far too many people want attention to the point where they will do shameful, stupid, immoral, or evil things to get it.  Look at the nightly news, what do we see?  Sex, lies, and videotapes.  Killers of boyfriends, girlfriends, children, strangers, family, and policemen.  It’s appalling.

Fifteen minutes of fame seems to be all that matters–never mind that it’s fifteen minutes now, resulting in lifetime status in The Hall of Shame for all the time that follows.  It’s like Hotel California where shame is only programmed to receive.  You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

You know those plastic collars, “the cone of shame”, that dogs sometimes wear when they come out of the vet’s office?  I sometimes think that the American people would have an easier time identifying who has acted shamefully if God were to apply a cone of shame to each person who has sought celebrity status, or political self-aggrandizement instead of honoring others. But then, the covers of People Magazine and tabloids wouldn’t look nearly so appealing to cult worshipers of celebrity.

God tells us that as Christians, we Live the Risen Life… by Honoring Others.  We don’t seek our own self-promotion, but we look to help other people.  This is so foreign to American life that it’s hard to imagine what a different world we’d live in if everyone put aside their striving to be Number One and looked to the interests of all others…not just to special interest groups who serve to make sure our celebrity continues.

I wish people could see politics as I do and perceive that politicians might talk about helping others, but really, they’re just using other people’s needs to promote themselves. The person who is supposed to be the public servant has instead become a public figure, a celebrity, and those with real needs and real pain have become the servants.

It is the Church that is supposed to serve the needs of others for no reason other than our witness to God’s love.  That is what today’s passage says.  True humility sacrifices oneself for the benefit of others.  It’s what we do because of what Jesus did for us.  Living the Risen Life means Honoring Others.

Brotherly love is not an easy thing to have.  Especially when there are so many things capable of dividing us from one another.  Even among Christians, we can be divided by politics, by socio-economic status, by race, by gender, by theological concepts, and by a myriad of other things.

But, in today’s passage, we see that when we are purified by the truth of the Gospel, we will be able to love one another deeply…from the heart!  How does the truth of the Gospel purify us?  Well, it becomes the overarching truth of our lives.  We are sinners.  God is righteous and holy.  We need a Savior, each and every one of us.  We therefore ought to see ourselves and each other through the lens of humility.

Ought differences between men and women divide us when Christ died to unite us?  Ought the rich resent the poor or the poor hate the rich when Christ died to unite us in brotherly love?  The problem in Americn culture is that we’ve lost sight of the truth of what we’re worshiping and have forgotten what it means to love one another deeply.

So let’s remember the truth of the Gospel and feel the needs of others as acutely as we feel our own.  Let’s resolve to treat each other as brothers and sisters in Christ rather than as adversaries.  Let’s remember that heaven’s residents will be those we agreed with and those we did not here on earth.  Let’s take all the worldly agendas that drive our daily existence or drive a wedge between us and nail them to the Cross where Jesus died to make peace with God for us.  Then the truth of the Gospel will purify us and free us to love one another deeply.

When we call Jesus “Lord” there are many things we will do out of love for Him.  We Live the Risen Life by Doing Good.  Are you at a loss for what types of things you can do as a Christian?  Over the next few days, we’ll see what the Word of God says.  As you read the passages of Scripture, stop and think about the fact that these are grammatical imperatives.  They are commands…for the person who calls Jesus “Lord.”

When my kids were little, I pulled them out of school one day to see the Olympic torch pass through a neighboring community.  It was a once in a lifetime event for us and my kids still remember it.  News spread about the torch passing through and it drew a huge crowd.

In the same way, if you are a Christian, then you are a light.  You won’t be able to hide it–if you’re genuine–because your love for Jesus will overflow.  And let’s face it: you’ll be seen.

The upside to being seen is that light draws our attention, as do the good deeds we produce…especially when we don’t brag about them.  People will see you do these things out of love for Jesus and it draws people to step into the light.

Sure, our witness (the salt from the previous verses) can become polluted and worthless if we’re careless and do not guard it.  But our witness can also be light and beautiful if we uphold it and let it shine!