Jesus for President

Just some excerpts from a book I've been reading that I wanted to share. =]

"The church is a people called out of the world to embody a social alternative that the world cannot know on its own terms. We are not simply asking the government to be what God has commissioned the church to be. After all, even the best government can't legislate love. We can build hundreds of units of affordable housing (a good thing by the way) and people still might not have 'homes.' We can provide universal health care and keep folks breathing longer (another nice move), but people can be breathing and still not truly be 'alive.' We can create laws to enforce good behavior, but no law has ever changed a human heart or reconciled a broken relationship. The church is not simply suggesting political alternatives. The church is embodying one."

"Remember when ole John the Baptizer sent his disciples to ask Jesus whether he was the one they were expecting and he didn't answer with a simple yes? Jesus instead told them to go tell John what they saw him doing. He knew that John could read the trail of crumbs. John knew that when lepers were healed, the blind saw, the dead rose, and the good news was preached to the poor, the one they were awaiting was indeed here.

What does our trail of crumbs look like? If someone asks if we are Christ-followers, can we say, 'tell me what you see?' Is there enough evidence to prove that we are taking after the slaughtered Lamb? What if they ask the poor around us? What if they ask our enemies? Would they say that we love them? Christians haven't always looked like Jesus. Perhaps the greatest barrier to Christ has been Christians who pronounce Jesus so loudly with their lips and deny him so loudly with their lives."

"A recent survey of young adults who are 'familiar outsiders' to Christianity showed that the three most common perceptions of Christians by onlookers are that we are anti-homosexual (an image held by 91 percent of the folks surveyed), judgmental (87 percent), and hypocritical (85 percent). How sad that the very things that Jesus scolded the religious elites around him for are the very things for which Christians are now known. We have a major image problem. To hear more about this study by the Barna research team, check out the book Unchristian (Baker, 2007) by our friends David Kinnaman and Gabe lyons."



Some tough things for me to hear. I know I can't change the way people look at Christians. I can't change people's hearts. But I know that the Holy Spirit can, God can, Jesus can. When we put on Jesus, when we live out LOVE, not condemnation, people see who we live for. They see Christ by the way we live. Not just by the things we say.

Trying to love a little more each day. Trying to be like Jesus a little more each day. =]