Christianity = Love

So… For the first ¾’s of my life, I struggled with what Christianity truly was. Maybe not so much of a struggle, but more of something that I wasn’t sure of. I knew how to become a Christian, and how to generally live a good life. But, as of late, I have discovered more of what it means. Around December of 2003, I was listening to the song “In Christ Alone”. As I listened to it, I started to realize some things. One of these was as the words ‘up from the grave he rose again’ spoke to me. Here is Jesus Christ, the man whom we follow, and the entire reason why he came was first of all to die on the cross, but secondly to raise from the dead. Ask most people why Christ came to the earth, especially little kids in Sunday school, and they will tell you he came to die on the cross for our sins. But, how amazing is it to realize that he actually came back from that death? ‘Up from the grave he rose again.’ The next part of that lyric is also awesome. ‘Now as he stands in victory, sins curse has lost its grip on me. For every sin on him was laid, here in the death of Christ I stand.’ We are free because of his death. Yes, this is pretty commonly taught in the church. But, how much do we here about his life? Obviously we hear about it a lot during this Easter season. I hope we can think about it for the rest of our lives.

Then we as ‘little Christ’s’ are called to live like him. What did he live like? He loved. What does it mean to love? It means to give your all to God, and to treat others as you would yourself. How many of us do this (I am talking to myself too)? I would say a pretty small fraction of us. What if we fed the poor as much as we would like to eat? What if we gave them the warmth of a bed or a house that they would like at night? These are part of the reasons I want to go back to Africa. I am not saying that people here in the USA don’t need this type of attention either. But God is leading me to Africa. I am not going there to implement a culture on their lives. In fact, I want to become part of theirs. I just want to treat the people of Africa the way I want to be treated. The only way to do this is through love. I am definitely trying to take the plank out of my own eye, because I know I don’t love others the way Christ did. I am also sorry for people who turn away from Christianity because of people like me who don’t love like we should. The way of Christ is a challenge, but one that I am willing to partake in.

One last thought. Imagine if we didn’t judge each other… Christ didn’t judge people. ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone’ Yes, we all make mistakes, but should we let that get in the way of how we think of people? n o