Stop looking down on people…

I have been examining myself and I realize that I need to stop looking down on people. I need to love more. I need to judge less. I need to have a positive influence on society, not just with the way I vote or the things I preach. But with the way I treat people. With the way I live my every day life.

I think we’ve become great theologians, debaters, and bible reciters. But how do we act? When we say that abortion is wrong, do we look at the teenage mother with compassion? How do we treat the gay boy? Or the divorced mom? How do we treat the girl who gives herself too easily?

How do we treat each other? We see sin and then we label each other with that sin. We put name tags on people. “Divorced”, “slut”, “gay”… And we treat them as though that’s who they are. But it’s not.

They are children of God. They were created by the same God that gave us the breath of life. They were paid for by the same blood of Christ that we were. And they are loved just as much as we are.

Sometimes we forget that we once wore labels too. I was “addict”. Maybe you were “unfaithful” or “liar”. But that’s NOT who we are.

So I’ve decided to see everyone as God sees them: loved. Because the second great commandment wasn’t that I should debate for the cause, prove my theology, or recite bible verses to prove my point. It was to love one another.

1 week ago

We need to love more…

If you want to follow Christ then you should treat everyone with love, regardless of how they treat you.

They plotted against Him. They falsely accused Him. They abused Him, spat in His face, mocked Him. They nailed Him to a cross. And how did He respond? Did He plan revenge? Did He make them regret it? Did He make sure they suffered for every single mistake they made? Did He wish them condemnation? No. The answer is a resounding no. No, no, no.

He did what we would never do. He loved them. He forgave them. He offered them salvation with His blood as the payment for their crimes.

This is the life we are called to as Christians. We are called to love our enemies. We are called to love. When we are betrayed, mocked, abused, etc. we are called to forgive. We are called to do as Christ would. In this, they will see that we His disciples.

2 weeks ago

What if instead of wishing pain, condemnation, and vengeance on our enemies, we wished them redemption and showed them God’s love?

2 weeks ago

They will know we are Christians by our love. And if we do not show love, we are not Christians.

2 weeks ago
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When you read the Gospels carefully, you notice this extraordinary gift that Jesus had. I’m not talking about physical healing per se, but more of the inner healing through a simple word, a look, a glance, a touch. Consider the celebrated scene with the little runt Zacchaeus. He’s collecting taxes for Rome from his own people, with a kickback from the take. He’s a traitor to the Jewish cause and the Jews are on to him, so they excommunicate him, a terrible penalty at the time. Basically, it meant that Zacchaeus, a lifelong Jew, could never again eat a meal in a Jewish home. He could never go to the synagogue on the Sabbath or to Jerusalem for the high feast.

One day Zacchaeus is in his shop counting his money and he hears the prophet of Nazareth is passing by. He wants to get a look, so he runs down the street. Now remember, this is Zacchaeus, the wee little man. He’s so short he can’t see over the shoulders of the taller men, so he climbs up a sycamore tree. Interesting, isn’t it? He went out on a limb for Jesus.

Jesus looks up and says “Zacchaeus, come down. I want to have supper in your house today.”

Now, when an orthodox Jew, which Jesus was, says “I want to have supper with you,” he’s saying, ‘I want to enter into friendship with you’. Everyone else in that self-righteous, judgmental, Jewish community drove deeper and deeper into isolation, deciding to put up with Zacchaeus just as he was. But Jesus looked at him and believed in what he could become, so He invited Himself to dinner.

And what happens? Zacchaeus jumps down out of the tree. Feelings that were dried up for years in his heart suddenly began to well up, boil up, convert his entire being. He begins to blubber, “Uh, Uh, I’ll give back fourfold everything I’ve stolen. And I’ll give half my goods to the poor.” Jesus’ affirming “Come down” changed the direction of the wee little man’s life.

Is there a Zacchaeus in your life? Somebody that everybody’s given up on? Judged incapable of any further good? Grandaunt, distant cousin, spouse, former spouse, in-law, member of your church, neighbor on your street, colleague at work? Someone of whom you’ve said, “I’ve been wasting my time trying to make you understand anything. You are incorrigible. Thank God, I’m quits and free of you. Don’t you ever dare to darken my door again”? You probably wouldn’t say that because that’s cruel. I don’t like to say cruel things either. They make me feel guilty and I don’t want to feel guilty. So, I play it smooth; I call it cool cordiality and polite indifference. ‘Good morning, you dork.’ In the churches across our land, we allow this garbage to masquerade as the love of Jesus.

Jesus said you are to love one another as I have loved you, a love that will possibly lead to the bloody, anguished gift of yourself; a love that forgives seventy times seven, that keeps no score of wrongdoing. Jesus said this, this love, is the one criterion, the sole norm, the standard of discipleship in the New Israel of God. He said you’re going to be identified as His disciples, not because of your church-going, Bible-toting, or song-singing. No, you’ll be identified as His by one sign only: the deep and delicate respect for one another, the cordial love impregnated with reverence for the sacred dimension of the human personality because of the mysterious substitution of Christ for the Christian.

Brennan Manning in “The Furious Longing of God”
2 weeks ago

An unprofitable servant…

We know that we are unprofitable servants. Nothing we do can compare to what God can do or what Christ has done for us through the Atonement. This fact leaves us in awe, awe of the love and grace offered to us. But sometimes we may wonder…

How do I fit in to God’s plan? Do I have a purpose? What does my worship do for Him? Does Jesus need me? What do I have to offer?

“Jesus doesn’t need followers to give Him self-esteem, authority, or power. He stands supreme completely independent of followers. However, He does receive from disciples something that all the self-esteem, authority, and power in the universe cannot offer: joy.”
(The Continuous Atonement written by Brad Wilcox)

That is what we have to offer. He is joyful as He watches us accept His atonement and lovingly obey our Father and partake of the peace, love, happiness, and grace that He has provided for them. We can offer Him joy.

1 month ago

God HATES sin because He LOVES us.

1 month ago

Who Am I?

 

I once saw this poster for a church that said “I know He is but what am I?”. I didn’t go to the church and I never got to hear their answer to that question. But it got me thinking…

I know that God is our Father and that He loves us. I know that He is holy. I know that He is all powerful. But what am I? Because I’m not holy. I’m not all powerful. I can barely color inside the lines. I fail. I don’t know everything. I’m weak.

Before I really knew who God was I would describe myself as average: not pretty but not ugly, not talented, not worthy, a failure, not good enough, not strong enough. And I didn’t think anybody understood what it’s like.

That’s what I always told myself. But now I feel like I’m not the only one. After hearing about some of your struggles, I see that the theme is common. We don’t know who we are. We are in pain because we AREN’T acting like who we really are. We’re confused. We want to give up.

So who are you?

If God loves us -if God is love- then you are just that. Loved. If God is our Father who loves us then who are you? You are a BELOVED son or daughter of God.

So I might not look like a supermodel. I might not do well in school. I might not be able to sew a dress. I might not be able to resist temptation. And I might be alone. But we were never intended to conform to a certain image and become a supermodel. We were intended to bring glory to God, to be loved.

We all go through this identity crisis. We don’t know who we are and we don’t know why we are here. We struggle.

Some of the struggles you told me about were that you:

1. Felt unworthy

2. Felt alone

3. Felt broken (emotionally, physically, mentally)

4. Felt like a failure

5. Felt weak

So let me go back to my list of might-not’s. I might not succeed at everything but God does. He is all powerful. And He loves us so He wants to help us! So I might not be strong enough to resist temptation, but He is. If I seek His help, He can lend me His strength to overcome temptation. I might not be able to sew a dress like I want to but He can help me. He can help in ALL things. So when you feel unworthy, He loves you. And if you seek Him, He will lend His worthiness to help you. So when you feel alone, He will send His comforter and be with you. When you feel broken, He will help you. Whether it is to open up to someone, to travel, to overcome a disability.

We are the ones that God loves and wants to help. That’s who you are.

God heals. He puts the broken things in this world back together. When we are worn, He reworks the fabric. When we are shattered, He puts the pieces back together and makes us new. Because He loves us. Sometimes we think healing has to come in a certain way. We have our own picture in our mind of how the pieces fit together and then we claim God has put the puzzle together wrong. That He hasn’t healed us. But maybe we don’t know what the puzzle is supposed to look like at the end, only He does. So we push him away when He comes to heal. You are the one He wants to heal.

Our identity doesn’t lie in anything that we do. Thank God. Because my love fails. I’m not the Mel who loves God, because sometimes my love isn’t strong enough. My heart is weak. But His love is strong. I’m Mel, the one who God loves. And that will never change. That is my eternal identity. So your love for God is failing? It’s alright. That doesn’t define you. His love does. And if your love for God isn’t strong, He wants to help you love Him. He can lend you His heart.

If God loves us then why do we feel all this pain?

When I was 8, I played the piano. I was trying to learn this song to play for my Grandma. I wanted to show her how awesome I had gotten. I played that song over and over again in our living room. And the neighbors would walk by and smile at me. They saw me and couldn’t help but “aww” (I was a cute kid. Don’t know what happened since then.) And then they would proceed to tell me things like “That was amazing!”, “You’re so good!”, and “You’re the best 8 year old pianist ever!”. (I watch Ellen. I know they lied about that last one.) They really cared about me, right? They just didn’t want to hurt my feelings. Well it turned out, I ruined that song. I hadn’t checked the key signature and was playing the wrong notes.I wonder now how I didn’t notice the notes were wrong. But I didn’t know how the song was supposed to go. I thought it was supposed to sound the way I was playing it. I still remember when my older brother came in and sat next to me. He told me that I had made a mistake and needed to look at the key signature. He said the song didn’t sound as pretty when you played the wrong notes.

I cried. I was so angry. I was embarrassed. Nobody likes being called out on their mistakes. I was hurt. But my brother loved me enough to hurt me to help me. Does that make sense?

He wanted me to be able to improve and play the song right. He knew how it was supposed to go and wanted me to learn to play it like that. And funny thing is, the guy that brought the tears was the one who gave me a big hug.

God does that. He loves us so He lets us hurt in order to help us.

Isn’t that so cool? It all comes down to knowing who God is and who you are. Once you know that, there is no need to worry. Because you will feel hurt, you will feel abandoned, you will fail. But that isn’t who you are. God is love. And you are loved.

4 months ago

I was thinking about each of you here on Tumblr. And what I could possibly do to help many of you from such a great distance. And this song came into my mind. All I can do is remind you that you are not a mistake.

Don’t believe the lies. You are not a mistake. You are not unloveable. You are not worthless.

You were made with a purpose. You are loved. You’re price is the Son of God. How crazy is that?

Don’t ever forget that you are loved. No matter what label the world puts on you… There is only one identity that is unchangeable. Loved.

(Source: Spotify)

4 months ago

What if love was our only motive?

4 months ago