Here's something to chew on - you know how people always say that you shouldn't care what other people think about you? Well, as I was doing my journal today, I noticed this (Acts 2:42-47), regarding the Christ followers after the Spirit came down and wowed them, and this was the part that stood out to me: "They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people."
I think that real Christianity is incredibly attractive to people because it is exactly what so many people are yearning for every day. People want to feel a selfless love. People want some hope for the brokenness they see in their world and in themselves. People want to live for something more. Now, people may or may not believe in Jesus, but what He stands for and the way that He lived His live will always ring true in the hearts of humanity when it is seen truly and in its purest form, without any religious propaganda or placing a price tag on it. Jesus started a grassroots movement that was all about and defined by love. The entire Bible, the entirety of God, is about love, first and foremost, and nobody - not a single person, when you strip them down to their hearts and souls - is against love. The problem is that the movement that Jesus started morphed into a religion, and with religion comes rules, and before you know it, we're killing ourselves and fighting against ourselves, because we're preaching love one second and throwing traditions on people the next. It is not love when a person has to jump through hoops to experience it. The religion is getting in the way of the movement, and that is heartbreaking, because that movement attracts. I mean, look at the last bit of that verse chunk: "And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." And all they did was live in love.
Anyways, I italicized what I did earlier on purpose because it says "all people". That means everyone. Even the people who were fighting against the movement of Jesus respected them. Even Jews respected them. They might not have agreed with them, and they might have wanted to kill them, but you can't help but respect love. And so that made me wonder - is the attitude of not caring what other people think, in some respects, getting in our way? Is it just becoming aloofness, arrogance, or apathy? Whoa, alliteration, I didn't even mean for that. Sweet. Why wouldn't we care what other people think?! Aren't we supposed to be reaching those other people!? We should absolutely care!
Notice that I say "care". Not "conform". We have Truth, and Truth absolutely can NOT conform to the world. We conform to Truth. But maybe it's the fact that we don't care that people are so disgusted with Christianity! Maybe we should listen when people say that Christians are hypocrites. Are we? Maybe we should listen when people say that Christians aren't acting like Christ. Is it true? Maybe we should listen when people say that Christians are judgmental, stereotyping, and close-minded. Are we?
I want people to see Jesus when they see me and how I live my life. And if they don't, then I'll admit it - I care what they think. Perhaps the biggest litmus test of whether we're following Christ is if people who don't can tell that we do, and when they see Christ, when they see what He stood for, then they'll at least come to respect it, if not believe it. What people think matters a lot.
0 comments:
Post a Comment