GRACE BLOGS COLLECTION
Jesus made room at his table for everyone, including those on opposite ends of thought. At Jesus’ table, everyone has a place and everyone is equal. I can imagine that the discussions that went on among his disciples were pretty lively at times, especially between two of them — Matthew, the tax collector and Simon, the zealot.
In Jesus’ time and country, a tax collector was a Jewish man who was working for the Roman government. They were looked upon with disdain by their fellow Jews. They were not included in the temple, nor were they guests of honor at anyone’s party. The tax collectors would basically bid for their job. They would tell Rome they could extract X amount of dollars in taxes. If the number pleased the Romans they got the job. However, many of them collected way more than their bid, which they ended up pocketing. They were extorting their fellow countryman for the sake of their oppressors.
Zealots, on the other end of the spectrum, were revolutionaries. They were the ones that wanted to take Israel back from Roman domination. They wanted their country back and they were willing to kill Romans to get it back. They believed in the sovereignty of Israel and were willing to lay down their lives for the cause. They hated the Romans and wanted them gone.
Jesus invites both of these men to his table and his team. I wish I could go back in time and see these two men interact with one another. It would be like putting the most conservative Republican on the same team with the most liberal Democrat. Jesus had some guts. And he made it work.
What this shows me is that it’s possible to disagree with someone and still work together, and *gasp* even be friends. Jesus’ instructed these guys to love one another as their commitment to him. He taught them to serve one another as he had served them. He taught them to love one another as he had loved them.
I am sure that it took a while for these two to get it but eventually, they did. Both had to give up their ideologies for a picture of a much bigger kingdom. Jesus wasn’t interested in the politics of his day. He was interested in establishing his kingdom. I think the same is true today.
Now, back to American politics. It really grieves me the way that the American Church is acting over politics. You would think that we were at war with one another split down a political line. I’ve read so many statements on Facebook about how you cannot be a Christian if you vote for Hilary Clinton. I’ve read about the same number of people stating there’s no way you can be a Christian and vote for Donald Trump.
My Christianity isn’t based on who I vote for . . . my Christianity is based upon whom I confess as Lord . . . and that is Christ.
You would think that during election time Christians somehow have managed to throw out the teachings of Jesus until after election day. Even then there will be doomsayers on whichever side loses. So many people are afraid the country is going to hell in a hand basket if either candidate gets elected. Folks, I have heard this rhetoric since I started voting.
If we truly believe that Jesus is Lord then stop your bellyaching, name-calling, mud-slinging and judging and start doing what he told us to do…prefer one another and love one another as he loved us, especially towards those that disagree with you.
In the end, our trust has to be in HIM and not a political party. Neither Trump or Clinton will be the savior of the United States. Neither one of them are, nor will be, the perfect candidate.
If Jesus can take two opposing men and bring them together, helping them understand there is a larger kingdom that we are to be concerned with, then don’t you think we should do the same?
My fellow Christians, please hear me . . . you are a Christ-follower first and foremost, an American second, and a member of a political party (or not) third. Don’t forget that order. Right now the people outside of the Church think we are a bunch of whiny cry-babies when we don’t get our way.
We are to be known for our love, not our political affiliation. If you want to immerse yourself in the political arena, then, by all means, go for it. Just remember who you represent! You represent Love (for God is love). Jesus taught his followers to love their enemies and to bless those that persecuted them. He said this to a group of people living under a hard and repressive regime.
At the end of the day, someone will win, and someone is going to lose. God will still be God 
and live will continue on. Will there be changes? Of course, hopefully for the betterment of everyone. Regardless of who is in the White House, we are called to pray for our leaders, submit to the governing authorities and do all we can to live in peace.
There’s a place for you at the table of Jesus. There’s also a place for the person who politically believes exactly opposite as you do.
Matthew and Simon learned the lessons of Jesus.
Will we? I sure hope so!
For a very interesting article on a greater kingdom perspective in this election, read Brian Zahnd’s article on How I Am Voting.
We’ve all seen the Facebook posts and the pictures flooding social media: Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, All Lives Matter. All Lives Matter started after Black Lives Matter. It was, in my opinion, a way of saying that black lives do matter but not more so than any other life.
The question remains, though, do we really believe that all lives matter? We have a tendency to politize things, say things that we don’t mean and mean things that we don’t really say. Do ALL lives really matter?
Let’s think about this for a moment.
Do the lives of the homeless matter? If so, then why do we have so many? Why are they passed by and ignored? Why are they silently judged and condemned? Most of us would like to believe that they are homeless by choice. Some of them are. Some of them have chosen that life. However, there are many that have not. They need help but there is no help for them. I have been guilty of ignoring their plight. I have been guilty of not wanting to give money because I don’t know their full story (i.e. whether they are worthy of my money or not). The problem is: to ignore someone is to say that they don’t matter.
Do the lives of the elderly matter? If so, then why do so many of them languish in nursing homes without anyone coming to visit or check on them? So many have families that never visit or check on them. So they stay there alone, ignored, and despised, sometimes for simply not being able to take care of themselves. Some do not have family and just do not have anyone to care about them. Again, to ignore them is to say they don’t matter.
Do the lives of the unborn matter? If so, then why are they aborted? Oh, I know that many would argue they are not really a life because they have not entered the world yet. But here’s the hypocrisy of that argument: how is that a man can be charged with double homicide for killing a pregnant woman but a pregnant woman aborting her baby is exercising her choice? Doesn’t make much sense to me. If it’s not a living being then there is no double murder. If it is a living being then abortion is murder. I know this is a touchy, hotly debated issue but if we are going to say that all lives matter, then ALL lives have to matter.
Do the lives of convicts matter? If so, then why are they so harshly judged and condemned. “Well, they are getting what they deserve. Don’t commit a crime if you can’t do the time.” That’s the prevailing attitude. I am not saying that people who commit crimes should not be penalized. However, when does that penalty stop? I’ve seen too many men get out of prison after serving their time, paying their debt to society and still be treated like animals because they did something stupid. But, I guess their lives don’t matter as much as a non-criminal.
I still believe in the death penalty but I know of plenty of Christians that do not because of the argument that if you are going to be truly pro-life then you have to be pro-ALL-life including convicted murders. To these Christians, ALL life does matter.
Do the lives of the LGBT community matter? If so, then why are they so harshly judged by the Church? Why are they condemned and considered perverts and outcasts? Most would answer, “Well, the Bible says so!!!” Yes, the Bible does speak about homosexuality. It also addresses fornication, adultery, lying, gossip, hate, overeating and other sins that we like to ignore and overlook. Most likely because these are “our” sins that we don’t want to be convicted of. Just a thought.
Do the lives of Muslims matter? If so, why are so quick to judge all Muslims as terrorists? I know that there are terrorists that kill in the name of their god. I know that terrorism must be stopped. I am not certain that our quickness to kill can be considered Christ-like, especially when we consider the fact there have been thousands of innocent civilians killed in drone strikes. Oh well, they were just born in the wrong country, to the wrong family in the wrong religion. Their lives matters if they do what is right (according to me that is).
I hope that you get my point. I recognize that there will be valid arguments on each of these issues that need to be addressed. However, at the core of who I am as a Christian, I must love people like Jesus loved me. His death on the cross proved that my life matters. I believe that my life matters. I believe that the lives of those I love and care about matters. And, I must believe that those that are different from me, even my enemies that might want me dead, their lives matter too. They mattered to Jesus because He died for them as much as He died for me.
What I am saying is that unless we truly believe that ALL lives matter then we need top stop saying it. Personally, I contend that what we really believe is….all lives matter, just not equally.
The true test of whether we believe all lives matter is when we are faced with being offended or threatened. I can say that all lives matter, but if someone is trying to hurt my children then suddenly my children’s lives take precedence in that situation and their lives, to me, matter more. Most of us would agree with that. So, in that instance, all lives do not matter equally.
We must come face to face with our own hypocrisy, racism, and self-righteousness. We must learn to stop ignoring people that are different because to ignore them is to say they don’t matter. In my heart, I want to believe that ALL lives really do matter — equally. However, my actions, attitudes, and judgements don’t always reflect this.
We might believe that all lives matter, just not all lives matter equally.
I do know that to God all lives really do matter equally. He died to prove that.
In light of all the recent shootings that have taken place in Minnesota, Louisiana, and Dallas, Texas, our country is in an uproar. And, rightly so. My heart aches for my country and specifically for all those involved in these situations. Facebook is full of opposing commentary of these events.
Blue Lives Matter!
Black Lives Matter!
All Lives Matter!
We need more gun control.
We need more armed citizens.
They were thugs.
They were good men.
The police are corrupt and racist.
The police are heroes.
It just doesn’t stop.
We live in an “us vs. them” society. This attitude hasn’t ever and will never work. The problems in our nation will not be solved with an us vs. them mentality. It is going to take all of us to fix the mess that we are in. It’s going to take all of us working together to make things better for our children and our grandchildren. Otherwise, nothing will change.
When we begin to look to others to fix the problems (because we see them as the problem) we end up believing that the problem isn’t ours. Worse, when we begin to blame others for the problems we end up excusing ourselves as if we are not the part of the problem.
To some degree, we are all part of the problem.
How can I say that? Because we don’t stop to actually put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. We all carry judgments and presupposed ideas, even if it’s the slightest of judgements. Don’t believe me? Think about this.
Have you ever met someone and decided that you didn’t like them? As time went on, you discovered their story and found out that they were not as bad as you thought. You may have even become friends. Has this ever happened to you? I am sure that it has. Which means you judged someone before you knew all the facts. All of us do this to some degree or another.
We are doing it now. Some of us blame the police. Some of us blame the victims. The problem is that we don’t have all the facts. Even if we did, if it went against our presupposed ideas, we probably wouldn’t believe the facts anyway, because it is always someone else’s fault. It seems that we always need a scapegoat, someone else to blame.
But the scapegoat is us, all of us. We are all capable of violence, being judgmental, being racist, and just plain being evil. We’ve all done things against someone else that we regret. It might not as bad as murder, but Jesus said that when you hate someone you might as well have murdered them.
You see, if we don’t learn to love then we will hate. More importantly, if we don’t learn to love, then we will fear. I believe that the opposite of love isn’t hate but fear.
There is so much fear in racism or most types of “isms” for that matter. When we fear someone we try to keep them “in their place.” But love believes all things, hopes all things, trust all things. Love looks for and believes in the good in people. Love looks at people through the eyes of God, and not the judgmental, log filled eyes of a fallen humanity.
I don’t have the ability to judge someone else properly and neither do you. I don’t have the ability to judge videos either because I can’t see everything.
Only God sits that high.
He knows the hearts, the backstories, the hurts and the reasons why people do what they do. Does that justify their actions? Absolutely not. It doesn’t give them the right to hurt others or treat others inhumanely. What it does do is make them somewhat understandable. Granted, they could be a sick, perverted, deeply broken, and even an evil person. However, they are still a person made in the image and likeness of God. They are being passionately pursued by a loving Creator who desperately wants a Father-child relationship with them.
I am not here to judge whether the police were justifiable in shooting these alleged victims. I have my opinions but they do not really matter. What matters is my response. My primary response needs to be love. Love for the police officers, love for those that were shot, love for the families of each.
My first response is to love those that are different than I am. I am to love those that disagree with me, that see things differently than I do. Jesus went so far as to even command us to love our enemies, to show them love by serving them. That’s a very radical, but doable, idea.
I do not, and cannot even pretend, to know what it’s like to grow up black, or to grow up in “the hood”, or to be racially profiled. I don’t know what it’s like to watch my friends die in the street or be pressured to join a gang. I went to a great school with beautiful pieces of artwork and statues everywhere. I don’t know what it’s like to go to an impoverished school with graffiti everywhere.
But I can empathize with those that have or do.
On the other hand, I do not know what it’s like to put on a uniform to protect people that hate me or want to kill me. I don’t know what it’s like to think that I may not come home to my family at the end of my shift. My dad was a cop when I was about 12 or 13. I never worried about that because we lived in a small town where nothing seemed to ever happen. The whole idea of mass shootings, riots, and cop killings was very foreign to me growing up in the early to mid-80’s.
But I can emphasize with those that have or do.
My point is that we have to stop blaming everyone else and look inside to see how each of us individually contribute to the problem. I don’t consider myself to be a racist but would I feel safe on a dark street with a black man in a hoodie approaching me? I have to seriously ask myself questions like these.
I know that we must start talking to each other and listening to each other. Love always wins, but love cannot even begin to win if we don’t start giving love a chance. It’s the only way. Stop blaming the other side and realize that it’s not us versus them, it’s just simply us. We are all humans. We are all creations of God. We are all in this thing together.
And yes, we are our brother’s keeper!
For further reading:
Don’t Be the Devil’s Star Witness
Thank God I am not like you! (blog)
Thank God I am not like you! (podcast)
Jonathan Martin does just that in his newest book, How to Survive a Shipwreck. With the musings of a poet, the heart of a pastor and the insights of a prophet, Martin masterfully shares the story of his own shipwreck, his struggles to survive and the lessons learned about a loving God that never left his side.Full Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
The value of an item is determined by two people – the buyer and the seller. The buyer actually has more weight in this equation because they are the ones that are handing over money for the item. If the buyer feels that the item is worth the asking price, then they will pay for it. The seller, on the other hand, sets the price and has to determine the lowest value he will take on that item.
The point of this is that the item never sets its value. Because it’s inanimate, it cannot get offended over the seller’s asking price or the buyer’s paying price. It cannot demand that more money be paid, nor can it argue that the buyer paid too much.
I use this example to show us that God is the one that gets to determine our value, not us. Yet, we so often times devalue ourselves and feel as if we are nothing. We look at the mistakes in our lives, what others say about us, how we compare to others and a whole host of other things to determine the value we place on ourselves.
As our Creator, God is the only one that gets to determine the value of a person, His creation. The highlight of this is that God places unmeasurable worth and value on human beings.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…..(John 3:16)
In Psalm 8, the Psalmist declares that God crowned man with glory and honor. (Psalm 8:5)
Jesus died for humanity in order to show them the incredible lengths God would go to in order reconcile them to Himself as their Father.
Before a baby is born parents place great value on their child. While I realize that this is not true in every single case, it is the way things are supposed to be. That baby has never accomplished anything great, has never done anything of value for its parents. That baby will actually cost his parents more than he can give back. That baby may even grow up and disappoint his parents because of wrong choices and actions.
Yet, the parents would die for that child. They would do anything for him. If that child was in trouble, those parents would do anything in their power to help save their child . . . no matter the cost.
Why? Because the child doesn’t set its value, the parents do.
That child could come to his parents and tell them how bad he is, how rotten, how much he has messed up and how he doesn’t deserve to be called their child. The parents would tell him to stop talking like that. They would encourage him, build him up and tell him all the good things that he is and has to offer. They wouldn’t hold his mistakes over his head. They would tell him what he can be, what they see in him.
Why? Because the child doesn’t set its value, the parents do.
Why, then, do we do the same with God?
We come to God in prayer and tell Him how awful we are, what a rotten sinner we are, and how much we have messed up. We feel as if we have to beg Him for forgiveness. We tell him how unworthy we are of his love. We go to great lengths to remind God of how messed up we are.
Some of it is because we believe that’s how he sees us. We believe that God sees us in that pitiful state and that as we beg for his mercy and forgiveness he takes pity on us and extends mercy. I know this is how I saw him for a large part of my life.
Sometimes, we listen to the lies of condemnation from the devil, the accuser of the brethren. We end up believing what he says more than we believe what God says.
In the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15) we see how God is because the parable is really about the father. In this parable the youngest son asks for his inheritance and then proceeds to go off and blow it. He ends up losing everything — money, home, friends, and his dignity. He winds up feeding pigs which would have been the lowest point a good Jewish boy could have ended up at.
When he finally came to his senses he decided to return home. He didn’t feel like he could be his father’s son anymore but he believed that he could at least be one of his father’s servants. He had set his value and it was very, very low.
However, the story has a different outcome than he thought it would. As he is approaching home his father sees him, runs to him and begins to joyfully kiss and hug him. The boy tries to explain what he has come home for but the Father won’t listen. The father reestablishes the value of the son by putting on him the best robe, a ring, and sandals on his feet. For time’s sake, I cannot explain the deepness and richness of this parable. What we need to understand is that the father set the value of the child and it was high.
The son’s mistakes and rebelliousness did not change his value. Neither does yours.
Please, I beg of you, if you tell God how awful you are . . . stop! Just begin to thank Him that you have great value to him. Thank him that you are loved and worth everything to him. Thank him for his grace and mercy. As you do this, you will begin to see yourself as he sees you . . . valued and loved!
Stop devaluing yourself. Stop listening to the devaluing voices of others.
You don’t get to set your value. Your Father in Heaven does and he sees you as immensely valuable, worthy of dying for! He would have rather died for you than to be without you.
That, my friends, is what amazing grace is all about.
I read a book last year, recommended by a friend, entitled Love Does, by Bob Goff. It made a huge impact on me because the author lives his life with love being his primary response. Whenever someone is mean to him or treats him poorly he tries to imagine the best scenario as to why they are acting that way. In this manner of living, love has become his primary response.
That has become my prayer ever since I read that book. My prayer is, “Lord, let love be my primary response.” I wish I could say that God has totally answered this prayer above and beyond my wildest imagination. I would be lying if I said it was true. The reason is that this is a partnership prayer. What I mean by that is this: I can pray the prayer, God can do His part in helping me but there is a part that I must play.
I have to want to be loving.
I have to want to change.
I have to let go of every preconceived idea, pre-judgment and critical notion that I have of every person that I come in contact with.
I have to BE loving.
I have to SEE people as being worth the value that God places on them.
I have to BELIEVE that they are worth loving, that they were born to be loved.
I have to HOPE for the best in them.
And that, for me, has not always been easy. I tend to be a critical person. Ouch, that hurt just writing that sentence. But, it’s true and I cannot let love be my primary response if I am not first willing to come face to face with my own critical, judgmental, self-righteous self.
The good news is…..I am willing to come face to face with myself, deal with my junk and allow God to do in me what I cannot do in myself so that love is my primary response.
Jesus gave us a new command as He was preparing to die in our place. His command was that we were to love others as He loves us. His primary response to me has always been love. Therefore, I cannot withhold love from others, as my primary response, because of the grace that has been shown to me.
What would the world look like if we allowed love to be our primary response?
We would not allow road rage to be a part of our lives.
We would not speak unkind words.
We would not abuse or take advantage of anyone.
There would be a harmonious beauty in the world because love is beauty.
There would be unity within the church.
There would not be a needy one among us.
There would be no divorce, no absent parents, no dysfunctional families.
There would be true tolerance as we sought to live together in peace.
I can hear some of your thoughts now. There’s no way that this could happen because we live in a fallen world. If this can’t happen then Jesus came for nothing. If this can’t happen then love fails and sin always wins.
No, my friends, I dare say let’s bring the future into the now. We know that in the future God is going to restore all things, do away with sin and death, and love will reign supreme. Many of us are anxiously awaiting that day. But what about the now? What about today?
Jesus taught us to pray, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done.” Well, if that is to be our prayer, then I believe God wants to answer it. His kingdom is love. So, when I allow love to be my primary response to everyone I meet, then I am bringing His kingdom into the earth.
When you decide to let love be your primary response then you are bringing His kingdom into the earth.
When the Church decides to let love be our primary response then she is bringing His kingdom into the earth.
When God’s children allow love to be their primary response, we will change the world. To borrow Rob Bell’s title, LOVE WINS! Love is what changes people. Love is what melts cold hearts and tears down walls. Why? Because we were born to be loved!
So, will you begin to pray this prayer with me?
“Lord, let love be my PRIMARY response.” I don’t want hatred, anger, a judgemental attitude, criticalness or bitterness to be my primary response. Even on the days that I am having my biggest struggles, I want love to be my primary response.
When you allow love to be your primary response, I promise you will see the world, you will see people, and you will see yourself in a whole different light.
Let love be your primary response.
Deep on the inside of every human being is the inherent need to be loved, to know that they have value and worth. No one can escape it nor deny it. Some people try to act all macho and tough as if they don’t need to be loved, or that they don’t need anybody, but it is not true. We all have the need to be loved, to know that we matter.
That inherent desire is hardwired into every single human being by our Creator. The Bible tells us that God is love. It also describes that God created man in His image and likeness. We were created out of love, to love and to be loved.
It’s been proven that babies need human contact. They need to be loved on. They need that one-on-one attention.
As children are growing up, they want to be loved by their parents. They want their parents to notice them. I cannot count how many times, as a parent, I have heard one of my children say, “hey Dad, watch me. Hey, Dad, did you see me do that? Hey, Dad, I can do this.” It’s all an attempt for me to pay attention to them, thus letting them know that they matter to me.
Teens, even though they certainly don’t act like it, want their parents’ approval, attention, and affection. They are testing their boundaries as they begin to spread their wings of independence. But they subconsciously want the safety of their parents’ boundaries. They want to know that if they fail, their parents will be there to catch them. Even the most rebellious teen wants someone to care about them.
That’s one reason why gangs are so attractive to some teens. The gang offers love, family, acceptance and a place to belong. Even though the love is misconstrued, the members feel loved.
As we mature, we look for a spouse to love and to love us. We then want to create children to love. Why do we have kids? We know that they are a lot of work, very costly, and there’s a definite possibility that they will rebel, not listen and could reject us. Yet, we continue to produce children because of the love that we want to give them, and receive from them.
We were born to be loved.
We were born to live in love.
We were born to love.
Love is at the core of our being because we were created in God’s image and He is love. I wish that we could say that we are love, but we cannot. Sin has distorted us, handicapped us, and made us inhumane to the point that we can utterly hate someone to the point of murder. Hate is so ugly.
Hate causes us to devalue someone’s life.
“winter” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by shioshvili, text added, flickr.com
Hate causes us to want to hurt them.
Hate can destroy us.
We were born to love, not to hate. We were born to be loved, not to be hated.
If we could only learn to receive God’s love, we would be changed. If we can wake up every day realizing that we were born to be loved by Him, it would make the biggest difference. I have been practicing that lately. Each morning as I lay in my bed before I get up, and each night before I go to sleep, I repeat to myself, “I was born to be loved.”
Of course, the thoughts of all that I do wrong come through my head, but I quickly silence them by reminding myself that God doesn’t love me on the basis of what I do. He loves me because of who He is.
That’s the beauty of loving others. I don’t have to love people based on what they do or don’t do. I can love them because I choose to. It’s hard sometimes because of people’s rejection and attitudes towards me. However, when I realize, and fully grasp, the fact that I was born to be loved and that I am loved immensely by the Father then I can reflect that love to others.
When I allow myself to be full of God’s love then I can give it away because I have a never ending supply.
As I realize how much He loves me and I look at others and realize that He loves them that much too, then should loving them be an issue for me? It shouldn’t be. It’s only when I let my personal judgments and critical thoughts about that person get in the way that I will stop loving them. When I see them as God sees them, I will love them. When I look at them through my human, imperfect eyes I may or may not love them.
My earthly love tends to be conditional, which really isn’t love at all. See my blog on Unconditional Love is an Oxymoron for a deeper discussion on this.
God’s love is unconditional because it’s based upon who He is rather than our actions. What if we did the same? What if we stopped looking at people’s actions as a basis for our love for them? What if we just looked at them and realized their number one purpose in life is to be loved and our number one purpose in life was to love them?
I think the world would be a better place.
You were born to be loved!
I love quotes, especially ones that stop me in my tracks and make me think. This is one of those quotes. I read it recently and it made me really think. It is a very powerful and true quote.
Most Americans today are not as familiar with the Bible as they were in generations past. In decades past, the Bible was revered, upheld with esteem and followed as a moral compass for society. These days it’s not the same. Many do not believe the Bible to be relevant for today. Most do not know the instructions that it contains, or if they do it’s based on Old Covenant Law and not New Covenant relationship. We live in a very Biblical illiterate society.
Many do not believe the Bible to be relevant for today. Most do not know the instructions that it contains, or if they do it’s based on Old Covenant Law and not New Covenant relationship. We live in a very Biblical illiterate society.
Many would say that it’s not politically correct (and it is not).
Many would deem it offensive (and it certainly can be).
On the flip side of this coin, there are many Christians who use the Bible as a weapon to beat people up, to condemn them and to make their own views seemingly valid. This is just as dangerous as not believing in the Bible, maybe more so.
The issue of this quote, though, is that most people will never read the Bible but they will read our lives. And that’s the way, I believe, that God wants it.
Jesus Himself said, “all men will know that you are My disciples by your love for one another.” I wonder how much love the world is seeing out of Jesus’ followers. I wonder how many of us would truly be considered disciples if there were a “love meter” somehow attached to us that all could read.
Our lives are Good News (gospel=good news). Our lives (our attitudes, ethics, words, actions, etc.) should reflect the goodness, love, and mercy of God. As followers of Christ, our lives should be the gospel that people are reading.
So, the question becomes what kind of news are they getting by reading our lives? Are they getting good news or a judgment order? Are they reading a love story or a condemnation of society?
As Christians, our life is the message of God to the world . . . at least in the eyes of the reader.
I know that at times I have been good news to those reading my life. Other times, well, I’ve been the bearer of bad news . . . for the reader, of course, but not for me. It’s the case of us vs. them. Usually, the “them” never get a happy ending.
I want my life to be the fifth gospel. I want my life to portray good news. I want my life to shout to the world that God is good, God is love and that He really wants to have a relationship with them.
If I can get them to see the Good News, God can take care of all the other stuff that we seem to be more interested in. It seems to me that we are so busy preaching against sin to the world that we have failed to just simply love. That’s not to say that we lower our standards but it is to say that I don’t have to defend God, the Bible or truth. My job is to love.
Jesus isn’t going to rate me on how much I had my doctrine sorted out and straight. Neither will the world, for that matter. What Jesus is looking at is how much love I am expressing. By this will all men know that you are my disciples…..by your love for one another. That’s the benchmark. That’s the litmus test.
As a Christian, I see too many of my fellow Christians passing out judgment like Halloween candy.
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When, in reality, Christians are not to pass judgment on the world, but the world can pass judgment on Christians. I wrote about this here.
Let’s reread the opening quote: “There are five Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Christian—but most people never read the first four.” ~Rodney ‘Gypsy’ Smith
What about your life? What are the people around you reading from your life? Are they getting an accurate picture of God or an inaccurate one? Would you be labeled a disciple by those reading your life or would they question your faith?
I want to be the fifth gospel.