They Will Know We Are Christians...

In the Kingdom we find a very unique kind of people. We came from the world. A place that promotes a sinful life, greed, hate, anger, danger, and every other kind of ugliness possible. That same world promotes love, peace, kindness, goodness, creativity, independence, and all sorts of nice things. So the struggle is to know why we need to move away from the world and into the Kingdom.

In the Kingdom of God, everything revolves around the one Person that lived and taught love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, and so on. Jesus! So we see this is part and parcel with the Kingdom and we chase after it.

We are given a Book to help us see and understand the ins and outs of this new life. The Bible!

Through our relationship with Jesus and the study of His Book, we come to know the Creator. God!

With these People and Book in our lives, we come to understand and seek to know the Glue that holds this all together. We learn to understand this “Trinity” and come to desire to know Person number Three: The Holy Spirit!

Then we discover other parts of this Kingdom. Like relationship, value, family, forgiveness, grace, mercy, joy, truth, peace, and more. Especially the big one: LOVE!

So we now live to know God, hang out with His Son, listen to His Spirit teach us. We read, pray, worship. We see the examples of all the goodness. We discover how to love and be Jesus to those who have not yet come to know Him. We see how to accept the beauty of God’s creation in people who refuse to even acknowledge His existence. We find out what it means to hear from teachers who have such powerful words for us. We see all the amazing people across the world that has such a wonderful variety of thoughts and understandings. We grasp the cultures and the way Jesus works within them.

God uses the wonder of technology to teach us and lead us and guide us. He shows us words and teachings from people we may never meet that are speaking right to us. We are healed in body, mind, and spirit. We are touched and we experience all different forms of grace.

We see what Jesus did for us. We who are so unworthy. We find ourselves living in the most beautiful, most amazing, most incredible family. It’s beyond words. Our bodies might be going through trials, but our spirits grow as we draw closer and closer to Jesus.

Then one day, one of our family members does something stupid in the eyes of the world and we throw all of those first 9 paragraphs out the window as we gather to vulturize the fallen.

I don’t excuse anyone for sin. But can we not swoop in this time like rabid animals? Can we remember that we all struggle sometimes? There is never an excuse for sin and never room for people who lead to do things that hurt others, but, as Christians, Jesus said we will most affect the world around us by loving one another. That is our priority.

Jesus was a man of no reputation. Quit worrying about yours.