Short post. You only have to watch the first 20-ish seconds of the video. Who says I’m not a giver?
OK, so what could this possibly have to do with my blog, you ask? How could this commercial make me feel actively convicted?
I think most of us, most Christians, are Hell Monitors. We’re right there to tell another person they are going to Hell, or to gossip among ourselves about other people behind their backs about all the wrong they do. We’ll take all the time in the world to explain how what they’re doing is sinful. But actually step forward to protect them? Guide them? Help them? LOVE them? No way, that’s not OUR job. That’s for the missionary, going-to-Africa types.
We’ll snuggle up high on our perch and talk smack about the homosexual or the adulterer, the atheist or the Jew, the addict or the criminal, the liberal or the scientist. “Oh, bless their little hearts; I’ll pray for them!” we say, when in reality what we mean is that we’ll pat ourselves on the back that WE’RE not like them, falling to sin and temptation. I wish I could ask God for that statistic: for the percentage of prayers that are actually just self-righteous smugness. I bet it’s really high.
We need to remember the Great Commission up there. We need to remember Jesus’ commandments. We need to read the book cover to cover and internalize it. There is ONE message. ONE. Don’t mistake it: it’s a challenge. Don’t let anyone tell you there’s a second point, don’t believe any voice of Satan who says there’s an alternate interpretation. There’s just one, and it’s this:
If you Love Me, show me you can Love every one of those I Love.
With Love,
Dad, The God of All Creation
I see myself, and soooo many others, get caught up in study of the Bible and trying to subvert that point. But let me admonish us all, Brothers and Sisters, that if that challenge is not the very first thing rolling through our brain when we wake up, the driving motivation of every word we say or every letter we type, then we are answering our Father with a negative; we’re telling Him we don’t really Love Him.
But lest you think it’s all guilt, let me remind you that we have a Lifelock, our commissioner, Christ, that not only protects us but guides us. All we have to do is step aside, ask Him for His will. Follow His lead. Love Him, Love yourself and your broken little heart, and Love the rest of us and our broken little hearts. He’ll tell you how. All we have to do is listen and submit.
In His Arms 