Luke 14

"12 Then He also said to him who invited Him, “When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just."


Interesting verse, and I doubt many people do this. Even though Dallas church fed the homeless, we never invited the homeless people to a type of meal that we would serve our friends, brothers, relatives, or rich neighbors. We served them our signature Peanut Butter & Jelley sandwich at the homeless shelter. The most we did was invited them to church for service via a spiritual feast and the feast we usually have for Sabbath lunch meal. However, the message here is that we do good unto those who are not able to repay us so that we can be repaid by God. Most importantly, we do things for others not seeking a reward. Giving to others not expecting something back. That "3 when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly" (Matthew 6). I think this is hard, especially when we are seeking for some type of recognition or acknowledgement from others. We forget the invisible reward and seeks only for the visible. This could be due to our lack of trust in God, that don't believe He will actually reward us even if no one sees us. This is mostly due to our need for instant gratification. But many times, God has His own timing which could be way later than we'd expect. Sometimes, His reward will only come on Judgment Day when He says we can enter the gates of Heaven. It is understandable that we would long for a quick reward to satisfy our need to be recognized in that case. It might be better if we just remember that our reward is the Heavenly Kingdom and we'd have to wait until the end for that reward anyway.