So I have been racking my brain all week about what I should write my blog on. I know i need to update my friends and family back home but nothing has been weighing on my heart. So i tried to write a funny blog.. that bombed. I tried to write another poem.. couldn't get creative.. and then i tried to write a new packing list for future racers.. and that got LONG and super boring. Finally, today, God spoke to my heart about what i should write about.
The other night my team and I watched a film called Finger of God . If you haven't seen this film, I definately recommend it! Yeah its cool to see all the awesome miracles God performs and to see the healings He does on a regular basis that has become normal, but the thing that stood out to me the most and has touched my heart is the way this radical christians love others. The way their whole life revolves around loving the people around them. Heidi Baker, who is a missionary in Mozambique.. who started the ministry Iris, says "its all about love man" and i couldn't help but laugh and look at my teamates and say she's like a christian hippy. But it's so true. Think about Jesus in the bible. What did he do to all the people he met? He loved them. Loved them enough to heal them, loved them enough to feed them, loved them enough to raise them from the dead, loved them enough to include them, loved them enough to break the law for them, loved them enough to forgive them of their sins, loved them enough to go without eating and stay up all night healing, loved them enough to risk his reputation. Most important out of all these things, He loved enough to give His life as a sacrifice so that we could live.
Its so simple.. yet so hard.
Loving others.
Why is it so hard to do this? Think how different the world would be if everyone lived like this? When you see someone in need or hurting the first thiing you do is help them. When someone is hungry, you feed them. Someone is sick you pray and allow God to heal them. If we all lived our lives totally devoted to loving others, think of how different your life would be. This is the simplest yet most forgotten command. God says in 1 Corinthians 13 that The greatst thing is love.. without this nothing else matters. The entire beginging of the chapter talks about if you had amazing gifts and power but all of this without love.. it would be nothing. Because the only reason God sent his son to die for us was because he loved every one of us. Not another person more or less- so if we say that we are christians following Jesus' footsteps but we fail to love the brothers or sisters around us whom Christ died for and loves immensely.. then whose footsteps are we following? Jesus didn't spend time around the people that could better his reputation and would make people like him. Jesus spent all his time around the people that were the most lost, the people who needed him the most. In Mark 2:17 Jesus states "Health people don't need a doctor- sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners."Jesus spent time with the sick and the outcasted. The lame, the prostitues, and the diseased. When God tells us to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth- what do you think the Kingdom of Heaven looks like? No sickness, no hunger, no depression, no self doubt, no abuse or sadness. Heaven is a place of perfection.. And when Jesus teaches us how to pray and He says "Your Kingdom come, your will be done ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN." We are to bring heaven here and now. I know we are so quick to tell the people around us to be careful of the company we keep or the people we are in contact with. And it hink this is true but i also think that we as christians need to be more intentional about making sure we are surrounded by friends that are christians but also some that are not. There is no better way to spread the love of Christ and the Gospel then by being an example and loving others despite the way they live their lives. We can spend all day reprimanding each other for our faults and pointing out each others flaws but what good will that do? We could do that all day and it still wouldn't come close to the amout of flaws we have.. but God didn't call us to be his judges. God calls us to be lovers. We don't live righteous lives because we are worthy of it or because we are better than anyone else.. we live righteous lives because God loves us and we do it as a form of worship to Him. Who is to say that someone living one way is any better than another person living a different way. What causes one person to stumble may not be what causes another person and vice versa. So what i believe we need to do is stop looking at the negative things about each other and loving each other in spite of the differences. Because in all honesty we all fall short.. in Romans 3:23" For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" Instead of judging each other on a worldy standard we need to love each other with the holy standard that Jesus set. We need to celebrate with each other in anticipation of our future Glory!
