Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Love One Another

Reading recently in a Christian magazine I found a story about a dining experience. A man and his wife shared a meal at a local diner. As they ate, the conversation at the neighboring table reached their ears. It was apparent their discussion topic was Christianity. One mocked Christianity, in particular the resurrection of Christ. He continued about how ludicrous he felt the teaching was. The eavesdropper wondered how he could let this kind of conversation go unchallenged. You see, he was a Christian and felt he needed to stand up for his faith. But the four guys at the corner table were all bigger than he, their strong cowboy boots even looked meaner than he felt. He finally became so agitated and frightened about doing nothing, he asked his wife to pray while he walked over to the table. With a squeak in his voice he began, “I’ve been listening to you, and you don’t know what you’re talking about.” He proceeding to give a flying rundown of proofs for the resurrection, grabbed his wife’s hand and ran from the diner.

Now admiration for the man’s courage is in order. To stand up for one’s faith requires a level of commitment and guts we often fail to exhibit. And I realize I am sitting in a position of hindsight and it’s 20/20 vision. But I wonder about other possible approaches that might serve to be more positive and perhaps leave a longer lasting positive impact than rattling off his list of proofs on God’s existence. It seems he missed the most important and impressive proof of the resurrection- his own life as a Christian.

What if he walked over to the men at the table and say something like this: “You know, I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation, and found it very interesting. If you don’t mind, I would like to pay for all of your breakfasts. The reason I want to do this is that, because of the resurrection, Jesus Christ has changed my life and lives in me, and wants to communicate his tremendous love for you.”

What yields the greatest change in people is changed lives, relationships that express Christ’s love to them in a tangible way.

This is the one thing that Jesus wanted His church to be known for: Love. Have you ever wondered what characteristic people assign to your church? We want that quality, that trademark of our Christianity to be love. What better thing to be known for? It is following through on the words of John 13:34-35, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

No comments:

Post a Comment