From a blog post by Silverio Gonzalez entitled “The Most Compelling Message About Christianity”….
As Christians, we should strive to live like Jesus. We should desire to care about people. We should seek to show compassion and love to people who don’t deserve it, the people who hate us, the people who oppose us, the people who want to hurt us.
If you want to live the beautiful Christian life, the life that imitates Jesus, you need to get over yourself. You need to stop trying to prove your worth; you need to stop demanding respect. You need to stop using forgiveness as a tool to manipulate people into doing your will. You need to embrace being wrong. You need to accept that most of your best works are foolish. You need to learn how to say you’re sorry. And most of all, you need to find your identity in Christ because it is through faith in Christ that we receive salvation, and it is through faith in Christ that our lives become a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. Luther said it better than I could ever say it:
Behold, from faith thus flows forth love and joy in the Lord, and from love a joyful, willing, and free mind that serves one’s neighbor willingly and takes no account of gratitude or ingratitude, of praise or blame, of gain or loss. (Martin Luther The Freedom of the Christian as quoted in Mark C. Mattes Martin Luther’s Theology of Beauty, 186)
Like me, you will continue to fail, but Christ’s mercy and grace are enough to cover all our failures, and the Holy Spirit is enough to help us in all our weaknesses. Through God’s grace, you can live the beautiful Christian life.
rusty tugman 