Peripatetics: The Art of Walking
Thursday, August 18, 2005
There's an old saying that the two worst people to be around are reformed smokers or someone who has been born again.
The theory is that both are irritating because they're so excited about their newfound experience that they won't shut up about it. They become rude and inappropriate and self-righteous and a whole lot of other negative stereotypes.
And, in some ways, Christians never get past that. They simply stay that way.
But, if we're to truly declare and demonstrate the message of Jesus Christ, shouldn't there be a way to do so in a way that's actually ATTRACTIVE to the listening audience? I mean, surely the negative stereotype can be broken.
I believe it can if we follow some of the tenants from 2 Corinthians 5: 14--21 (from The Message):
"Our firm decision is to work from this focused center: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat. He included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life; a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own.
Because of this decision we don't evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, and you know. We certainly don't look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from tthe God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering the forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We're Christ's representatives. God used us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God's work of making things right between them. We're speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he's already a friend to you. How? You say. In Christ. God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong so we could be put right with God."
We should notice that this follows yesterday's lesson (re-read that passage below for more context) and there are a few things from both passages that will help us avoid being annoying as we represent Christ to the world:
1. We should truly care about others. That means you'll probably develop a meaningful relationship with them before just hammering away with truth of the Message. (yesterday's passage)
2. We should realize that the message will appear odd to the watching world (yesterday's passage).
3. We should stay focused on the true message and not on the little "rules" we have for cleaning up Christians...in other words, focus on what the Word focuses on instead of what man focuses on.
4. We should be living a more abundant life...the resurrection life. Sometimes I wonder if our tribe sees that often we aren't.
5. We should be encouraged that we're new creatures, living as a true ambassador for the Lord, living a life of forgiveness of sins through Christ...in relationship with Christ.
Now, I realize that's a lot to digest, so for today, I'd like to ask you to comment on whether or not you think we're "out-living" the world. Why or why not? How can we do better at being an ambassador?
I think that would go a long way to what we're going to talk about tomorrow from Galatians.
Brent 4:47 AM
Comments:
I think we as Christians are outliving the world. I saw this when i went to Ireland this past summer. The Christians there were truly living abundant lives for Christ and they were so joyful about it. It made everyone we came in contact with to "Want what they have." I think that we should live in such a way that people will "Want what we have." In 1 Peter 2:12 it says " Live such good lives amoung the pagans that...they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us." That is truly outliving the world. -Millard
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