Love Well

Have you ever tried to make a "to do" list for your faith?  Have you ever tried to work to become a better Christian, a better follower of Jesus?  What are those things that we try to do to become more "Christian"?  Often it consists of reading the Bible, praying a certain amount of times, telling others about Jesus, not smoking, drinking, or dating those who do those things.  I can keep going, but you get the point.

It's not that those things are bad, but when I start making that list so that I can check-off my Christian activities I quickly become frustrated.  I often get to the end of my day and realize that I forgot to do something, or I did something that was a "what not to do" on my to-do list.  Then I feel like I'm further away from God than when I started my day, and I have a tendency then to pull away from the people and community who will draw me near to God.  It's a vicious cycle where I do something "wrong", pull away from God, then do something else "wrong" because I'm further away from God.

It's not that those things are bad.  Reading the Bible, praying, and staying away from harmful things are all good things.  But when we make that our faith then we become frustrated, like we are a hamster on a wheel running to nowhere.

In Bible times, a sign of whether you followed God or not was if you were circumcised.  I know that seems totally weird, but that was on the top of every God-followers checklist.  Then Paul came around after Jesus had died, rose again, and went to heaven.  Paul was telling people that no longer is being circumcised the true mark of a Christian.  People were flabbergasted by his statement.  Basically he was saying, "Get rid of your checklist because it's pointless."  He says it like this in Galatians 5:6:

"For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value.  The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love."

The only thing that counts...wow, that's a lot easier than my checklist.  There's only one thing on Paul's checklist: "faith expressing itself through love."  What if at the end of the day we stopped asking ourselves, "Did I pray, read my Bible, stay away from the things I was suppose to stay away from," and we started asking ourselves, "Did I love everyone I came in contact with today?"  Because, after all, that is the true mark of a Christian.

Love well today.  Seek out the broken, the depressed, the loners, and love them.  Love your siblings (in word and action).  Love the prep, nerd, jock, and misfit that are in your lunch room.  The other things on your checklist are pointless without getting this one thing right.  So, how well are you loving others today?

Boom-shaka