Someone said that what we need to be identified as a Christian is love, not a t-shirt. "By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). According to another verse, "besides all these things, clothe yourselves with love, that is, the bond of perfection" (Colossians 3:14). I agree, I don't think you need a t-shirt to be identified as a Christian. Sometimes they might help start a spiritual conversation with someone though! Whether they're believers or not, we're to do all for the glory of God. If a believer is not showing the love of Jesus, then they probably should not be wearing a shirt that claims anything to do with Christianity lest the world see this and take it as a chance to critique the body of Christ. I'm thinking of bumper stickers here and people showing road rage when their bumper sticker has a fish symbol, cross, a Bible verse or something along those lines. However, nobody's perfect, and yes this includes Christians. We all have good and bad days, and like the Bible says, there is none that is good. Not one.
As a Christian, we are expected to live to higher standards because God’s ways are higher than ours. It is much easier to be grouchy, lazy, or otherwise unoccupied than to actually be making an effort to live out the gospel in our lives, get off our butts, and DO something. Be the change you want to see in the world; it’s not just a “Gandhi” thing. “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained” (James 1:27). Be in the world, but not of it. Yet, we’re in it and are often influenced by it. If we fail, the world sees that as hypocrisy when in reality it’s just another testament to our sinfulness and our need for a Savior. That’s exactly why no one can get to God without Jesus! I can’t do it and neither can you. Nobody earns their salvation. It’s a gift and I’m definitely grateful or I’d flunk the “test” along with everybody else. The Bible says that faith without works is dead, but there is no salvation by works. Works are the fruit of our faith, not the means by which we’ll be saved. Jesus saves us, and there isn’t anything we can add to his finished work on the cross. In the book, “No Compromise: The Life Story of Keith Green,” his wife Melody Green quotes Keith about this. “God chose Abraham because Abraham had a godly heart, and then God gave him the grace to do godly works to prove his godliness… An apple tree becomes an apple tree as a gift of God, but proves it’s an apple try by making apples” (p. 251). So the question becomes, what are you doing for God? If works are the fruit of our faith, what fruit are we bearing? If we don’t bear any fruit, we don’t want to be like those that buried their talents and the cut-off branches. Can a good tree bear bad fruit? How can we better serve God and our neighbor? God was never looking for slaves or robots, but for us to love Him above everything like He loves us. He made us and deserves our love and obedience, but for Him to love us little specks of dust when we don’t even deserve it? Inconceivable, to quote the Princess Bride. Yes, I just quoted the Bible, Gandhi, and the Princess Bride (both a book and movie that I’ve read and seen) all in the same post. Anyway, the above verse identifies true religion as taking care of widows and orphans… In other words a relationship and not the false religion of the Pharisees in which they only sought to appear “religious” and “beautiful” in the eyes of the world, but inwardly were like whitewashed tombs. It’s calling out the hypocrisy in our time like the hypocrisy in Jesus’ time. While Christianity is technically a religion, it was never about following man-made tradition, but about following Jesus/God. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Do all for the glory of God and as if you’re working for God and not man. Don’t be like the Pharisees keeping a list of other people’s sins, or even of your own and which laws you’ve broken today. God knows our hearts. If you know you’ve sinned, repent, confess, and live with the hope and grace we have in Jesus. So why do I feel the need to talk about perfection yet again? Because, not surprisingly, I’m not perfect! We even have a model in the psalms of David, where he writes feeling hopeless to feeling elated, but all the while believing in God and that He will get him through. David was not perfect and was human just like us, with fear, joy, anxiety, sadness, happiness, worries, and so on. Lately, I’ve had to reflect on things that are not exactly right in my heart and it’s been both unpleasant and eye-opening. Some things have been surprising, some uncomfortable, and some have left me confused. I wish I could see the whole picture and skip to the grand finale, but that’s not how it all works. Having myself put under a microscope and seeing things kept locked away is not easy. It’s easier to tuck things away and forget about them, but we don’t really forget do we? Things somehow always manage to resurface and come back to bite us in the rear… So what does God want us to do? Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to Him. We are to love and serve one another, but we can’t do it alone. Even if you think you’re serving the Lord, you can’t do it without His help. We have God in prayer and Scripture, and the body to build each other up. We must turn to Him and then go be a light that points others to Him, for His glory. Somebody said you can’t expect a clean house just by owning a vacuum, you have to use it. It’s the same with our Bibles and prayer life. If we neglect Him, leaving the living water, our thirst will return and Satan will take advantage by condemning, attacking, tempting, or whatever means he can think of. Don’t give him the satisfaction, but pray and let the Holy Spirit bring to remembrance the verses you need to answer him with Scripture. “Though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again” (Proverbs 24:16). Not today Satan, not today. Comments are closed.
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DisclaimerWhile I love open discussions, not all internet users are kind. I'd like to build people up, not have others cut people down. Therefore, no comments, but feel free to email me if there's something you'd like to share with me. Archives
July 2020
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