Short, tall, skinny, fat, young, old. Christian, atheist, agnostic, Muslim, Buddhist. The murderer. The adulterer. The pedophile. The homeless man or woman. The drug addict. The harlot. The hypocrite. That mean old nasty man next door. The gossip. The lost teenager. The person who hurt me. The person who looks different from me. The person who seemingly has it all together. The celebrities we love, then love to hate. The people we put on pedestals, who almost always fall from grace. These are the people who make up our world. These are the people we are called to love.
Displaying the love of Christ has been heavy on my mind lately. It’s been a nagging, almost constant thought brought about by what I saw as less than loving actions occurring all around me. Jokes about MJ’s death. Jokes about those less fortunate. Incredibly judgemental criticism for public figures that have faltered. All of these things I have witnessed coming from otherwise good people. Even Christians.
Are we holding others to a higher standard than ourselves? I have heard it said that elected officials should be held to a higher standard because they are in public office. Or, celebrities should be role models because they are in the public eye. Are we not all called to a higher standard; no one more than another? Do we not often inadvertently set these people up to mess up by placing incredibly unrealistic expectations on them? We put them on pedestals. We love, even idolize them, until they do something incredibly human – they make a mistake. Then we condemn them for doing so.
My point is three-fold. First, the responsibility of being a role model does not rest on the shoulders of public figures alone; we are a role model to someone as well. We never know who is watching us and therefore, we carry the same responsibility.
Second, who am I to judge another? Romans 3:23 reminds me that all are sinners and have fallen short of the glory of God. Twelve-step programs are often wrought with trite cliches, but each one is heavy with meaning. Two come to mind here. The first one is that whenever I point my finger at someone else, there are three fingers pointing back at me. And second, the acronym YET stands for You’re Eligible Too. So whenever I say, “Oh, I have never done something like that.” Someone always follows up with, “Yet!”, which means that I am just as capable of making the exact same mistake. Micah 6:8 states that the Lord requires us to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God. That’s a standard by which I am called to live daily. Am I living humbly in the knowledge of my own shortcomings, and showing mercy and justice to those around me? I confess that some days I fall far short of this standard.
Third, we are called to love one another. In John chapter thirteen, verses 34 and 35, right after Christ washed his disciples’ feet, he told them to love one another as he loved them and that by this all men will know them as his disciples. The Savior of the World, knelt to wash the feet of his followers. This image always leaves me humbled and in awe. Christ often went against the culture of his times and reached to the lost, the outcasts, the scorned, and the forgotten. Again, the question to ask myself is, “How am I doing?” Do I love the “unloveable”? Or do I love only those who are easy to like, love, and accept? I find this question incredibly convicting in my own life. Again, I fall short of the standard.
When we call ourselves as Christians, we identify ourselves with Christ. When I think about what that means, I realize its magnitude. How I live could determine how another views Christ. Have I ever really stopped to think that my actions could have eternal ramifications in someone else’s life? Will they see something in me that causes them to desire Christ? Or will I be a deterrent? The choice is mine.
Lord, I long to be indentified with you. Yet, I acknowledge and confess that I may often do more harm than good. I recognize that when I call myself a Christian, I am a reflection of you to the world. That is a huge responsibility. Lord, I don’t want to be a deterrent in the life of another. Father, I pray that you will help me to love as you loved. I pray that you will live in and through me each day. I pray that people will see you in me and as a result desire to come to know you personally. I pray that people will know whose I am by how I love.
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Chrystie Cole
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Very well said! We ARE called to love EVERYONE!!! Not just the ones who love us back
Great post!
Thanks, Mo!
Christ is the vivid display of God in man, and our Savior. We long to reflect Him properly.
Thank you for reminding me of this
You are seeing through your Father’s eyes.
Ok – now this is a good post – possibly a great one – as far as it goes. I certainly ‘get’ your intent and can share and empathise with your thoughts and prayer. i know i have seen similar things in myself as you seem to have in you also.
There is something else to consider though… just how far do we take this?
As far as we are ‘comfortable’ going? A little bit outside our comfort zone? Or as far as we are possibly ‘able’ to? Or only as far as we think He is calling for us too, perhaps?
Consider this.
All of us – everyone on the planet, not just those around us in our community/state/country, but ALL of us have very different ‘standards’ by which we measure things and measure ‘other people’.
Whose standards are we to comply with when we attempt to Follow Christ through calling ourself a ‘Christian’?
American Christians and ‘their’ standards’ (or Australian ones in my case?) The standards of, say, a poor black American community in New Orleans where much devastation still remains four years after Katrina??
The standards of a ‘civilised country’ like Russia where there is a strong branch of Eastern Othodoxy Christianity?
The standards of much of the third world where Christians from ‘advanced’ cultures do mission work in the poorest of AIDS infected villages?
Which are Christ’s Standards for us?
Why is this important?
Well in light of what you have written… what would a person in Africa think – who walks 2 miles each day to try and get clean water from either a well or river to drink, wash and bathe in or who spends 10 hours a day crawling through rubbish to try and make enough money from thrown away scrap to feed a family on… what would they think of someone (like you or me, say) calling themselves ‘Christian’ who live in absolute (comparitive) luxury but make pleasant sounding words about how Christ calls them to take care of the sick and poor and homeless and widowed and fatherless?
But who might spend more in a month on disposable diapers than their family has in a year to live on?
Or whose church just spent as much on a new sound system ( to replace the ‘worn out old one’ from 2002) so they could hear their band play better, as several villages might manage to earn from hundreds of people in their entire lifetimes?
Christ called on his followers to sell EVERYTHING they had – and follow Him – He who owned Nothing, but relied upon His Father to see to His need. Are we willing to do as he asks in that case?
Just how ‘uncomfortable are we actually prepared to go in our Christian ways?
Whose standards do we truly follow – His, Ours, Or those of others who we can easily see are not actually being anything like 100% Christian??
What degree of hypocrisy are we all actually comfortable living in?
And i by no means exclude myself from this – i just wonder where we are to ‘draw the line’?
<B
Good points…Definitely some food for thought!