Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Faith In. Love Out.

Faith and love are inseparable.  They are not the same thing, but they always go together.  

Faith is the welcoming in of Christ.
Love is the outward manifestation of the indwelling Christ in your life.

If you have faith in Christ, but that doesn't show up in how you love other people, you don't have faith in Christ.  If you truly believe, then you wouldn't be able to contain the gospel inside of you.  It would leak out of your seams.  It would pour out of your mouth.  It would show up in the things you do with your hands.  If you truly believe it, it's the greatest news that there could possibly be, and loving other people would mean telling other people about Jesus.

Likewise, if you love people but that doesn't manifest itself by your faith in Christ, you aren't loving people.  The gospel should be the point of your interaction with the people around you simply because it is the most important thing.  These people will find out that Christ was the point of their lives whether that happens now, later or when they stand before God and he executes judgement for them, but it will happen.  God wants them to find out on this side of the grave because He doesn't want them to go to hell.  He wants to spend eternity with them.

It's like recess soccer.  (If you could get grades for recess, my GPA would have been much, much higher.  I loved that 30 minutes after lunch to just run around and be a stupid kid.  Heck, I'd do it now if I didn't care about looking like the developmentally stunted idiot-kid that I am in my head.)  You can be the one who owns the ball, but the only way recess soccer is any fun is if you get other people to play with you.  It's really fun with 10 people, but it's even more fun with 11, and 12 is even better than that.  The more people you have playing, the harder it is to get that idiot-grin off of your face.

The kingdom of heaven is the exact same way X 1,000,000 (,000,000,000,000,000...etc).

It's a Jesus party, and the more people that show up, the more fun the party.  Don't be that jerk on the recess field who takes the ball off to play by himself.  (Nobody liked that kid for a reason)  Tell people about it.  Invite more people to the party.  Tell them to bring friends.  They don't even have to bring a snack or beverages. or plastic cups or hot dogs.  Just come.

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