NOTES for Mat 10:37-42; Mat 11:1
"And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water..." Only a cup of cold water... These are very important words. Goodness has no measure. "For God gives the Spirit without measure" (John 3:34). It is bitter for us to see how immeasurably smaller the good we do is than the burning of our heart, than our thirst to embrace the whole world with our love and make everyone happy. If we suffer too much over this, then our suffering is supplied by pride, which has pushed some people into terrible crimes in similar situations. And here before us there is only a cup of cold water...
To give, or more precisely to give a thirsty person water to drink each time, may be no less precious to God than all the apologetic theological treatises written over the past 2,000 years taken together. For goodness has no measure. Only evil has a measure.