No need to cut off more ears!

I often see Christians more satisfied with proving a point than loving, not saddened at all when the point they have made has hurt or excluded somebody from feeling loved, accepted or valued. We need to aim to make companions, not points.

I have certainly been guilty of fighting for what my pride wants to prove over showing love. Showing the light of Jesus. I have certainly excluded others while trying to defend myself. The aim
should always be to include, unite, redeem and love, as Christ modelled. I don't write this to judge, I want to journey with others honestly, together seek truth. To be disciples of Jesus. If it's possible to do it 100% real! No attempting to earn righteousness through any way other than grace. But trying to walk in step with Jesus through the help of the Holy Spirit. What does it look like?

Sometimes hurt in our lives stops us from being truly able to face the world with out a defensive wall up all around us with moats and dragons and everything we have in our power to keep people from hurting us. This accounts for a majority of peoples attacks on others. Can we see it that way? Feel bad for those who hurt us because they are hurt! We need inner healing so we can view the world with clean lenses. Not tarnished by anger, resentment and pain.

It's not about how you look to the world, It's all about what path you are on. You can be on a path of love or a path of destruction. A path where we walk with others, speak life and healing to others, or the path of destruction where we get so caught up in swinging weapons, we end up taking many innocent people with us as we go.

Good news, regardless of the path, it won't change how much Jesus loves you, how much the church should love you. It just changes how many people you hurt and how often you have to carry a weapon.

We make choices every day that take us more down one path than the other but we can always choose to walk back onto the path of love. This journey isn't about whether we are failing or not. Failing is one of the only guaranties. It's about how we take the journey. How we deal with that failure from In ourselves and when others fail us. Does our value or their value change?

My thought is no. And I think Jesus would agree.

With that said If we as Christians are to represent Jesus, we should be a lot more slow to speak. Check your path position. Am I leading with love or destruction. Am I wielding a sword or stethoscope.

Once we decide to follow Jesus. We aren't speaking on our own anymore. We are speaking with Jesus. We have asked the Holy Spirit to journey with us. Some good advice from james:

James 1:19
My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,

We as Christians can be just so darn defensive. Are we sometimes trying to defend Jesus like peter did to the guards who were going to take him away. Jesus had a mission and it was to show gods heart and love to the world. There are battles we must be willing to loose if it means the world sees love. And Jesus himself, knowing full well his innocence and intention to save man, shut his mouth to men while being accused. Why did he do this? It fulfilled prophecy yes, but Jesus didn't just do things to fulfill prophecy, he did things that he knew represented the father. He was so in step with the father.

Sometimes we can show love better by closing our mouths.

In fact I would argue most times we can. Because our tongue is often driven by the fire in our bellies and not the love in our hearts allowed to us by the Holy Spirit though grace and love.

James 3:8
But no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

Turn the other cheek, love your enemies. How can we do this while condemning them?

Jesus was concerned about the individual. He wanted them to know who they were, once a person knows they are loved and saved through grace the desire to judge and harm others grows very dim and the fire that burns bright in us becomes that of sharing the beauty that is unconditional love.

The need to judge others becomes silent when you are filled with the confidence of unconditional love and the desire to share it!

And how can we even begin to take a stance of judgment with someone in the first place, this is so flawed.
Do we think we know their sin?

Sin is clearly not as cut and dry as the word of law or even the writings of Paul  The Pharisees saw it as a sin to work on the sabbath and to uphold that law they would break the law of love. They felt they were in the right to constantly remind people of the law and the fact that they were breaking it. Jesus showed them the way. Even in the old testament God said I require mercy not sacrifice even while the people
Fought every day to uphold the law through sacrifice and ignored gods desire for mercy. But Jesus didn't say exclude the law. The law was there for  "help" and Jesus to remind us of "the heart."

A law with out a heart is not a law of Gods.

Would we bind Jesus by the law? That's what the religious at the time did. Used their laws to kill him. He was spending time with the sinners. In fact saying the kingdom of heaven wouldn't  be accessible to the self righteous.

I simply think it would so benefit the world to have more unconditional love not more people who fight to make a point at the expense of others. Cutting off ears needlessly. This is a journey. Do we fail? Undoubtedly. But we can find love between our failings.

I don't want to hand Jesus a bag of severed ears and expect him to be proud of me. I will just end up making more work for him as he has to then heal those who I have broken just like he did in the bible. I want to be a part of the healing. Let's try to take that journey.

What if Jesus really was about love?

I know there is a lot of Ill will towards Christians. And before I say anything else I would like to state that I understand why. Because the label Christian has been used to judge, hate, and sometimes even kill others. None of those things are okay! They are despicable! For those who label themselves Christian and inflict these things on others, this hate... 

Hypocrite is not nearly a strong enough word for you! 

To quote Jesus, we could call them a "brood of vipers" These people are beyond lost. 

Now I would like to make a really silly analogy. Just to help illustrate the simple foolishness of a hateful Christian. It would be like joining a group called "the giraffe lovers", who's soul purpose was to care for, keep safe and love giraffes, then going out and killing giraffes. Why did you join that group and completely disregard its purpose? Not only is that the opposite of what you should be doing, It would, and should, upset the founders of giraffe lovers to say the least, like throwing mud on all they stand for. Maybe it would be better to look in the mirror, recognize your hate and form another group honest to your hateful desires. Call it what you really are, a giraffe hater! But no, you became a part of this group. Why? 

You are destroying all it stands for! 

This is what the world sees of Giraffe lovers! Their hateful actions will be much louder than those who are out caring for our long neck friends. Firing a gun is always louder than shaking a hand. The world would react defensively for giraffes as they should! But also defensively against a group who just wanted what was best for giraffes and never okayed the actions of these loud jerks! The groups whole purpose would be railroaded! 

Truth can be very easily lost in the noise.

Okay I got carried away with the analogy. My point is. I very much understand the upset towards what the label "Christian" has represented. And I think the label deserves that upset, and I think it should force the church to take a long hard look at what it represents, but I see something amidst the smoke and dust these loud hurtful people have created. 

I truly felt love from reading the gospels, from Jesus.

A very deep knowing, humble, simple, yet profound example of love. I see a beautiful foundation for something that has been completely misrepresented by so many. I want people to be able to see through the loud stuff! To at least get a glimpse of what the intent might have been. For just a moment try to see past the fools going around killing giraffes and consider that maybe they don't represent the core values of that group. Maybe they don't know what the heck they are doing. 

That just maybe, Christianity has been railroaded by "the very loud", who do all the very things that would upset Jesus the most! 

Now I know we could also get into historical debates about who Jesus or yeshua really was. Whether he was more than a man, or whether he existed at all. Those are fair debates and should be allowed to happen. For my purposes though, the idea of Jesus is compelling enough to begin the process of following him/his teaching regardless. Not because I want to Judge or hate or be high and mighty or because I know what it all means or because it's the only way to love. None of that! That actually goes completely against what I believe the message of Jesus is.

I truly want to love the world better, love myself better. I believe the world deserves love, I believe people are beautiful and I want to love more truly, more deeply. I want to treat people

Better, more humbly, less judgementally. 

I believe the most miraculous thing about the story of Jesus is not the healing of sickness or turning water into wine or any of the physical miracles. Even with out those things, the teachings of Jesus would stand out to me because of his wild and unapologetic outlook on loving. He came into a time when the law was an eye for an eye and he said love your enemy. When the religious leaders were like Gods and he said humble yourselves. He wanted to be with the outcasts, he wanted to love them into wellness. A time when wisdom was like gold and he said be like children. He didn't just preach. He lived it out. 

I want to follow Jesus, not because I know for sure I'm right! I want to follow him because I want to understand love more deeply. I want to know why a man would die for strangers because he wanted to live out love so badly, he was willing to die for it. I want to know why the privilege of sacrifice leads to fulfilment in a mysterious, "we are all one" kind of way! 

I don't ever want you to be hurt in the name of what I believe! Because who I follow only wants to heal brokenness, to love others, to fix the hurt. 

Ultimately if you choose to still believe a true follower of Christ is just bad news. I will not get loud and angry. I will do what I am taught, directly from how Jesus modelled it. I will close my mouth, and I will attempt just simply, to love!