What does being a Christian even mean? You might think, I go to church on most Sunday's, I pray before I eat, I try to be a good person. I haven't committed an "big" sin lately and I do believe in God….So I guess I must be good.
I am a struggling sinner living in a fallen world attempting to depend on God more and more everyday and completely failing constantly. It's a funny thing living in the "Bible Belt" and being confronted by what it means to be a good person and a good Christian almost daily. Here in the south being a good person is just about all you need to be considered a Christian.
I have found lately that I have struggled a lot. I am consistently depending on this world more than Jesus and I hate it. Slowly I am starting to realize how God is using my struggles to bring Him glory. He is humbling me beyond belief, showing me that without Him as the center of my life I will never be the man He has formed me to be. He is teaching me that not one person is greater than the other and to love people completely! Love people for where they are and who they are.
"Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducess, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question. Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law? Jesus replied: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and Prophets hang on these two commandments." -Matthew 22: 34-40
To love others fully you need to first love yourself and to do that you have to love God with everything. For when you Love the Lord your God with everything you accept His love and grace poured out over your life. In doing that you can love yourself because you know that your creator loves you for you! How awesome is that?! The your Savior loves you for you! Does He want you to continue to live in sin and to do whatever you want? Absolutley not! Romans 6 covers that. But when you love God with everything, you start to love what He loves and you start to hate what He hates. James 4:8. As you come closer to God, He comes closer to you!
So now that you love yourself because you recognize that you are nothing but a sinner redeemed by Christ in His crucifiction and knowing that He loves all the more, you can love other's as yourself! What does that mean? To love the people like me? Same race, same religious views, same culture, same socioeconomic status? Jesus isn't talking about loving just a few people. He says to love your neighbor, your fellow man, the people you come in contact with daily, as you love yourself!
Your neighbor is the homless man you pass going to work everyday, the family across town without running water, the woman on the side of the street selling herself to make ends meet, the guy shooting up in an alley, everybody! You don't have to agree with everything someone does and you don't have to agree with the way they live their lives but God says to love them LIKE you love yourself! How does that look?
A friend and I started doing a homeless ministry in Athens, GA when we both lived there about 2 years ago. We would go downtown every thursday, friday, or saturday night to hand out food and drinks. I was very intentional on not preaching to them at first. I believe that showing the love of Christ is so radiant and attractive that people will notice a difference and in turn ask you what you are doing and why. Plus, homeless people get preached at a lot. I know a lot of people who believe that homeless people had a choice to get where that are and that they are just lazy because they could get out of it. These homeless people know that's how a lot of people view them so they already feel rejected by a lot of society.
Any ways, the first couple times we went out we gave out food/drinks, some welcomed the gesture while some didn't want anything to do with us but over time they started questioning. What are you doing this for? and why? One of the hardest questions asked was, " Do you feel better about yourself for doing this?". He knew a lot of church groups that would come down once a month, give food, preach, and go back to their warm houses filled with food and not give another thought about what just happened.
This is what I was trying to avoid. A weekend warrior just doing my good deeds to feel better when I laid my head to sleep. We did this every weekend and over time we became friends with most of these people. We started doing the ministry because we felt a little tug on our hearts but, after a while it became more like a time to go hang out with firends. We got to know many of them, their names, friends, families, life stories. We not only said, "Jesus loves you" but we showed it. We started to love them for who they were! We eventually had many talks of Jesus but we also had talks of politics and of life. We were able to build relationships with the people who society deemed unlovable. Nothing but a bunch of drunk, drugged out, lazy people.
Still to this day I go back to Athens, GA and when we see each other it is as if we had been best friends our whole lives. 1 Corinthians 13:13.
This is what Jesus says to do! So why don't we? Why are so quick to judge and condemn? Why do we shut our doors from the hurt and needy ? Why are we so quick to condemn our neighbor instead of loving them?
I am not perfect and don't claim to be. I know that God is continuing to mold me into the man He wants me to be but I have to choose Him and die to myself in order for Him to do that fully! I know I have a lot to learn and I will always learn something new each day I open my eyes. But one thing I am so certain of ….My Jesus and His overwhelming love and grace! When He says to love Him with everything and to love your neighbor as yourself He doesn't mean to love Him with just your time, money, or prayers. He doesn't mean to just love people who love you. He doesn't mean to just take a homless person out to eat only to forget about them when you go home. He means to give Him everything in your life and to love people just like you love yourself!!!! Matthew 16: 25. He wants us to completely die to ourselves to become alive in Him!
So what does it mean to be a Christian? Is it to be as good as you can be and to put on a smile and a tie when you go to church? Is it going to church every Sunday and tithing? I think if that's all you think it is you're completely missing out on what it means to be a Christ follower. You miss out on His love for you! His love that changes you and makes you wanna love others all the more!
Christ told us what the two greatest commandments are and He told us that every law and prophet follow under those two commandments. Jesus sums up His will for us in those two commandments. He tells us that if we do those two things completely we are following Him and His will for our lives.
Christianity isn't about being perfect, its about recongnizing that you are not perfect, a sinner and without Christ's redeeming love, without His grace, without His everlasting/unending love, without Him…that's all you'll ever be.
The greatest thing of all is that we ARE redeemed…we ARE free….we ARE loved!!!! All God wants is for us to turn to Him and cry out Abba, Father!!!
