So you’re coming home. As you turn into your driveway, your eye catches something in the front door. It’s a package. What could it be? Who is it from? Or maybe you know what’s inside because you’ve been waiting for its arrival. Now with Amazon delivering so many packages to people’s homes, I don’t know if getting a package is as exciting as it used to be, but it’s still fun. I can remember getting Grandma’s Christmas box each year. Each year there would be something that she sewed for me and my sister, there would be a toy or two, and good old fashioned Wisconsin string cheese. But of course the package delivered from Grandma wasn’t about toys, or clothes or cheese; it was about her love, delivered in a box to our home.

Why are there pastors? Why are there Christian teachers in schools, childcares and Sunday schools? It’s because you want to learn what the Bible teaches. It’s because you need examples of what the Christian life looks like. But those things are worthless if your ministers—whether they are pastors or teachers—don’t deliver the most important thing: the love and compassion of God. The ministry is filled with people who are delivering compassion. And that's something we should look forward to all the time.