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Beloved Blogger Robert J. LaCosta

Harvest of Hearts


The odor is one of the typical signs. If we had a nose for salvation, we would surely skip over some of these guys.

The boots, “luggage” and inevitable plea for money confirm our profile (aka “judgment”).

If we were honest and surveyed our thoughts, what goes on in our minds when we come across the homeless? We might catch ourselves pondering addiction, mental illness and even satanic influences.

Our mental gavel might declare, “Recidivism!”

We might secretly and cynically conclude that “hopeless” and “homeless” are differentiated by just one letter.

“Give me the eyes of Jesus when a homeless person knocks on the door,” Capital District Rescue Mission Executive Director Perry Jones said. “Give me the same vision that Jesus has when he sees them walk up to us. I don’t want to depend on my own eyes.”

PHOTO: Perry's passion: the burning desire to have the eyes of God.

Hearing this, the pounding gavel of The Almighty, in whose image these men, women and children our made, comes thundering down on any callousness that stubbornly lurks in the dark edges of my judgmental soul.

In Albany, New York, the mission has seen literally tens of thousands of these “profiles” and probably hundreds or more healed and set free from the snarls of addiction. Several of them are on now on staff helping others out of their nightmarish maze.

Perry Jones has “seen” the harvest of many souls in a robust garden that blossoms in what others consider the smelly part of town.

The television commercial asks, “What’s in your wallet?” The only judge worth trusting asks, “What’s in your heart?”

My answer: “I don’t want to be knocking on heaven’s door and find myself homeless.”

PORTAL TO HEAVEN: Where others see vacant land, God sees the potential for a garden or farm. Our judgmental minds might be the only thing that keeps us from tending the land and seeing the harvest of hearts.

Whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed, for he shares his bread with the poor…And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’…

Proverbs 22:9 (ESV), Jesus, the homeless man (recorded in Matthew 8:20, ESV),

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