Loving the 4.5 Billion.

     There are roughly 6.8 people in this world. 6.8 billion people at different stages of life, different ages, different beliefs, different lives. It's crazy to think that there are that many people on this earth. But it's even crazier to think about the fact that of those 6.8 billion people... 4.5 billion of them don't know the love of Christ....... And if that isn't the most tragic thing we have ever heard, than we're totally missing something.

     We are incredibly blessed in the U.S. to be able to come home to a comfortable house, probably with air conditioning. To be able to eat 3 full meals a day. To get in our cars and drive where we want to go, not just where we need to go. To go to the mall and shop around for hours for clothing that we love too much not to buy. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying these things are bad, at allll. But how much value do we place on these things in our lives? How much time do we invest into them?

     I feel like we tend to let ourselves get consumed with what we have, or even what we don't have that we want, that we fail to acknowledge the people in other countries that maybe eat a bowl of rice for the day and that's it. We're blessed with SO much, and yet there are people around the world struggling to just to live.

     1 John 3:17 says, "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?" It should break our hearts when we think about those who don't have much or anything at all. And I'm nottt saying that we have to feel guilty for what we have that others don't. But if we realize how much God has blessed us with, and the power we have in that to change lives for Him... I think that's way more powerful than just saying 'we have a lot and they don't have much'. It's powerful to think that God blesses us so we can bring glory to Him. 

     So what does that mean in this context? I think part of the reasoning is that we can get to places like this, where we realize that we have a lot AND we have a relationship with Christ, but there are people that don't have anything AND don't have a relationship with Christ. And God blesses us so we are able to help with both sides of that spectrum. We're blessed so we can bless others and shine the light of Christ in the lives of those 4.5 billion people who don't know the incredible love of Christ. And in turn this glorifies God.

     We don't have to take all of our stuff and sell it or give it all away to know that we have so many opportunities to use what God has blessed us with to bless others. Just praying for and thinking about those 4.5 billion people more often than just when those commercials come on t.v. for the children in Africa, is a start to the process of how God can use us to spread his glory to the nations by blessing others.