As a Christian. As a human.
I look around at the city I live in, the people I go to school with, and wonder...
How would the world be different if we actually lived like the Bible told us to?
That's easy to brush off. It's so simple to say but somewhere between the saying and the living, the message is lost. Christians, and I have to think especially in America, are raised with a disappointing sense of entitlement, that we deserve to have a good life, full of people we like and people who like us. Sadly, in our culture, being a Christian is often equated with enjoying life on easy street. We deceive ourselves into expecting, no, demanding, instant happiness a and genie-like God who takes care of all the "necessities" our credit cards can't quite handle. I am not to say that being in relationship with Christ does not bring joy. On the contrary, the Bible reminds us that being a child of God offers an outpouring of joy and a peace that passes all understanding. However, this kind of joy is not based on circumstance but rather on the recognition of the endless love and grace we unjustly receive. Therefore, it is out of THAT kind of joy, a joy of gratitude, a joy of being pursued in a divine love, that we serve and sacrifice.
So my question remains. What if Christians started taking the Bible seriously?
How would the world look if we actually...
cared for the widows, the orphans, as our own family?
cultivated the fruit of the spirit instead of the fruit of the world?
turned the other cheek?
loved like we have been loved?
I do not ask these questions as a judgement but as an acknowledgement that we as a Church, myself included, may have gotten it wrong. We walk by people on the street, we ignore our friends who are hurting, we allow or even cause the destruction of our families. We forget that poverty, suffering, and loneliness may be all that man on the street ever knows. We forget that our friends require the same care and love we expect them to grant us. We forget that childhoods, marriages, are things that shape and transform people. We forget that we are here for one reason and one reason alone: to be a tool to reveal the salvation of Christ. Who am I to waste this gift of life worrying about a bigger house, a nicer car, a better party? We too often behave as if time is OURS.
How would the world be different if we remembered that ALL of our lives, our time, our money, our efforts, belonged to God?
Would something need to change?
I know for me, it would. I pray, that through God's grace and guidance, I will move from "making time for God" to making time for me. I want my life to be so purposed, so focused on glorifying Christ that I forget the things I think are good, that I would lose sight of the emphasizes of this world, and gain an eternal perspective.
I plead with God that there might be an awakening in the church, that His servants would not settle for Christianity as a side dish to their already full lives, but pursue a passionate, consumed, abandoned life for God and through God. I cannot live like this without the help of God- I am too weak and the voices of thew world are too loud.
But it's what I struggle for.
And it's a worthy struggle, indeed.
