i read an article in relevant magazine the other day written by a guy name shane claiborne. it was actually 2 different exerps from his book "the irresistable revolution", which is really good by the way. (so far). he talks about how we hear all of these "success" stories involving people who were once druglords, murders, and cussers who find Christ, and immediately their life is better, and they become clean cut, get some nice looking shirts, and go speak at church camps. there is nothing wrong with this at all. i think it is awesome that people that appear to be so lost can find Jesus like that. but i think those of us that grow up hearing these stories, those of us who have it all together, and have been christians since we burst from the womb, hear these stories and think, "man so we are supposed to get our crap together when we recieve Christ". i dont think this is necesarrily true, shane says that once he started taking his faith seriously, Jesus wrecked his life. and i think that should be true in all of our lives. if your natural reaction to every single situation is to respond in love, than dont worry about what i am writing, because you are obviously beyond this. but if you respond to situations out of anger, then Jesus will turn your life upside down. if you care about homeless people, then Jesus will turn your life upside down. He doesn't care if we simply care about them, he calls us to know them. what shane is saying is, once you start REALLY looking at how Jesus lived his life, and REALLY start trying to emulate that, then your comfortable life will be turned to shambles. i am very comfortable right now, not in the sense that i have nice things, but in the sense that it is freaking cold out (14 deg.) right now, and i am sitting here in my warm house about to eat a heart shaped pizza that my mom makes every valentines season. instead of going out and feeding pizza to homeless people. i say this to you pointing out that i am the worst of offenders, and asking you to join me in my quest for living the loving life we are supposed to.
LOVE|NICK
1 comment:
I know what you're saying. The greatest commandment is this- Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. And then the second greatest commandment is loving others as He has loved us.
Talk about an outrageous calling- But we were not created to sit idly. We were not created to do nothing about what He calls us to. I think when Christ asks us to feed the poor it can even be looked at in two ways. I could be wrong but when I think about the passage, anyone who is spiritually poor would be someone who lacks knowledge about our Lord and what Jesus Christ did on his cross. We are called to "feed" them the gospel. We are called to take the message to all nations.
We definitely have a lot of feeding to do, because there are many, even here in america, who are starving for Christ.
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