What Would Jesus Do?

We ask that question a lot and I'm afraid that many times it's pretty self-serving. If we're willing to be honest we would probably all have to say that most of the time we don't know. And, if we're still being honest, we would also have to say that most of the time it wouldn't be what we do. I'm sure that some of the time we get it right, but the problem is when we start thinking that all of the time we get it right.

I look at our churches and I see people that really love each other; and I see people that don't. When I look at other people and see myself I tend to be much more tolerant of the things they do that don't measure up (to what? my standard? God's standard?). I think God looks at all of us like that. He sees each of us in each of us. He sees the people who really piss us off the same way he sees us. He looks at Christians in our sin and sees Jesus. He looks at people who haven't accepted him and he wants to see Jesus. I think we tend to look at each other and never see Jesus. And, sadly, we look at ourselves and never see Jesus. (Except for the really self-righteous people and I probably shouldn't get started on that; I'd give myself away. God sees them a lot differently than I do; and that's on me, not him.)

There's a lot of spiritual searching in this country right now, but it's so mis-directed. Somewhere along the way we (the church) lost the right to be the guide. We started hiding inside our sanctuaries and our catch phrases and locked everybody else out. We started thinking that what Jesus would do was somehow related to our inward-focused fear of the world and forgot that he never passed up a chance to eat with the sinners and hang out with the prostitutes and tax collectors. Any time he got a chance to stick it to the self-righteous he nailed them. Man did he make them squirm.

Maybe we should be looking at the things that make us squirm and wondering if we missed something along the way.

God, I know people who really, really do great things for people and nobody really knows about it but the ones they help. They love people because they love God. They look at other people and see themselves. They look at other people and see Jesus. Instead of looking at someone and saying, "There but for the grace of God go I"; they look at them and say, "There because of the grace of God I can love". I think that's what Jesus would do.

Pray for peace.
Mike