Matthew 25: 34b-36  "…Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:  For I was hungry and you gave me meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in: Naked, and you clothed me:  I was sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came to me."  (There's that word "kingdom" again. )

Those kinds of things are the mark of Christian people.  When I went through chemo,  (two more months and it will be 5 years, Praise God) I was one of those people who had a terrible time.   People showed up at the door with food who had never even been in my house before.  For months and months, the food kept coming.  I was overwhelmed with gratitude and promised God that when this was over I would never again fail to take food to the sick.  To be honest, I had only taken food when the church committee called and told me what they needed for me to do.  No more.  I take food.

And in April of 2006, the pastor asked me to organize a jail ministry.  I had never been inside a jail, but I agreed to do it.  I found 28 women who were willing to go with me and try to do this ministry-- alternating every two weeks during the year.  We split it up to cover the 52 weeks.

What a shock.  I had probably lived a sheltered life.  The women in the jail were definitely not people I would have met otherwise.  There were no windows.  The walls were concrete, and the reception was never predictable.  Some of them were so lonely they would weep when we came in.  Some were so bitter that they cursed us explicitly.  I thought I would be afraid, but I wasn't.  We would take a couple dozen doughnuts in, share the gospel, listen to their stories, share ours, and in the end realize that we were not all that different.  They had just made different mistakes than we had.

What Christ was telling us was that we could "Come on in."  When he said, "…you blessed…", he was stating a fact.  We are blessed.  All the kindnesses that we have done may have blessed others, but the truth is that the greatest blessing is the one you, yourself, get for helping others.   It feels good.