Monday, February 14, 2011

Chapter 8 – Mission: A Revolution of Grace

“The more unsavory the characters, the more at ease they seemed to feel around Jesus.”

“Jesus got a chilly response from more respectable types.”

“The Christian church now attracts respectable types who closely resemble the people most suspicious of Jesus on earth.”

“Why don’t sinners like being around us.”

These statements almost comfort me. I never fit in. I never belonged. I didn’t come from the right family. My mother seemed to understand that it would be this way and although she never explained it to me so I could understand as well, she tried her best to let me stand upon her to rise above.

Why do I try so hard to fit in at church? Why do I try to be respectable? Why do I seek acceptance from the church goers? Some of the people I enjoy the most don’t attend church. Some are none-practicing believers and others have never met Christ. I hesitate to do something that might change them. I prefer them the way they are.

I love people who love me not because I am a good Christian, but because they like me as a person who just happens to be a Christian. Despite the fact that I am?

People certainly didn’t love Jesus because He was a good Jew. The good Jews hated Him. The people who were considered unclean and unworthy and despicable loved Jesus. Jesus didn’t see them as untouchable. His righteousness was enough to cover all.

Jews believed one unclean person would defile the temple. Jesus came to show that one righteous man could cleanse humanity.

“The contagion of holiness overcomes the contagion of uncleanness.” Walter Wick

What can one do to wipe the stink of modern day Christianity from oneself? Perhaps you don’t take your ministry to the streets so much as you take yourself out of church and to the streets. Stop planning and start doing.

For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
Matthew 5:46 (ESV)

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