I have been thinking lately. That is usually good.
Am I a believer or a Christ follower? [by the way, there is no guilt here, I am just having a discussion.] Believers tend to punch their ticket and then go on with their lives. Christ followers think every day about who they are emulating.
This is not about who the good ones and the bad ones are. It goes like this- I love Jesus and I want to follow Him. So, what did He do? He loved, he cared, he invested in people. He didn't judge anyone. Christ followers are intentionally working to live like Jesus did, because we want to follow Him.
To the extent that we are able to do this, it is a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.
4 comments:
It's kind of like, okay guys, do you want to come with me, or stay here and fish.
Agree with the thesis of the post. However, I would like to comment on the "invested" remark.
While I'm sure this was not your intent, but more so me reading into the statement far too much; saying that Jesus invested in people implies that he, himself, would in some way shape or form benefit from said investment.
I picked at that for one reason: Jesus = Nothing but love, love = “willing the good of the other as other”. Therefore, it’s proper to conclude that Jesus both expects and wants nothing for himself in return. But rather, he only wants us to flourish spiritually. So, I guess we could call it a “spiritual grant”.
Apologies if this seems fruitless, I merely want to help make that distinction and simply put, I enjoy that philosophy of love.
To add a further note to the idea of investing ourselves in others. The whole of the Bible teaches us that God's ways and God's thoughts are higher than our ways and thoughts. Thus, sometimes His teachings don't make perfect sense to minds bound by this earth and it's common understanding of words like "investing." God always takes us to a higher level.
Here on earth investing is almost always associated with money and returns. God's challenge is to think of investing as something more than money. His "returns" are very present when we invest ourselves in others, for Him.
The one who invests him/herself in others receives a return of laying their head on the pillow at night, and having peace in knowing they extended God's love and did His will in reaching outside themselves.
More importantly, here on earth we think of investing money and the returns coming back to us. Not so with God's love, and God's principles of investing. When we invest ourselves in others, guess who gets to keep the majority of the returns. You get it...the person in whom we invested ourselves.
Returns going to the recipient are very often hope, encouragment, lifting up our of life, feeling loved, seeing a glimpse of who God is. Why go on? The returns are many.
I hope your challenge to us to invest in others is accepted by your readers as something new to put into practice.
Thanks Jeff.
One other admonition concerning the term "investing" in people. Expecting a return is a valid, Biblical teaching, when we do God's will and investing in people. The "expecting" is called Faith.
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