Growing up and through much of my life, I’ve acquired the mistaken belief that my Christian journey is standing on my own two feet, gutting out the decisions that seemed wise and good. I could not expect someone to come and rescue me or hold my hand when the going was tough. But that is not what Scripture teaches at all. How can we demonstrate God’s love and redemption if we are all acting like John Wayne? Demonstrating love and compassion is far different than any cultural standard. Being transparent, knowing when to keep quiet and when to speak, being approachable, being a peacemaker, hungering and ghosting after heat is right and pure require a steel spines attachment to the One who loves us. As we grow in our dependence on Him, we are empowered to show how God is transforming us.
“…if an individual Christian does not show love toward other true Christians, the world has a right to judge that he is not a Christian. Here Jesus is stating something else which is much more cutting, much more profound: We cannot expect the world to believe that the Father sent the Son, that Jesus’ claims are true, and that Christianity is true, unless the world sees some reality of the oneness of true Christians.” Francis A. Schaeffer, The Mark of the Christian
“What we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are . . . because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier . . . for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own . .” - Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets
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