Show them God in you!

Everyone’s path to Jesus is different.  There is not one particular way to get to Jesus, but there are many different roads that we must all travel as individuals to get us to that place of surrender.

Some people might have a road that brings Jesus to them early in life.  Some might grow up understanding and having a relationship with Jesus, and then there are some people who have that exposure, but turn away, to find Him again in their own way. 

We are all created to be individuals and to me that means that we have an individual road map to Jesus.   One day while I was at work I was cleaning off the face of my cellphone and saw my thumbprint, and I was awestruck by the fact that no one else in this entire world has the same thumb print as mine.  That I am truly not just one of a kind by my name, but I am one of a kind by my creation as well.

I have seen my fingerprints more times than I can count, but on this particular day I just sat there thinking how amazing it is that God goes to such in depth detail to distinguish us from each other.  Hair color, body shape, skin color, facial features and names, I think would be enough, but I guess not, because He gave us all, our own personal design.   No one can recreate your fingerprint, it solely belongs to you, and this is how your path to Jesus works.

There are a thousand roads you must travel in this life and one of those roads is sure to bring you to your Lord and Savior.  Some of us come to Him in sadness, grief, a birth of a child, confusion or a longing to be connected to something bigger than ourselves.  Whatever your road that brought you, it has brought you to the door of Jesus.

What we know is the only way to get to God, is through Jesus.  There a few things we know for sure, we know that to get to God you must go through Jesus, we know that to have access to Jesus, you must believe and confess that He is and we know that you must have a true heart to that confession.  Meaning I can say that I believe something with my lips and that can make me “born again” but if my heart doesn’t back up what my mouth has just said, I am truly not a new creation in Christ.

All of these things need to be working together to enter into God’s kingdom.  In Acts 15 I thought it was interesting that people were arguing about whether or not the Gentiles, who had accepted Jesus, needed to be circumcised to indeed, accept Jesus.  This was coming from some of the Pharisees, who thought that since the newly converted Gentiles were not circumcised by the laws of Moses, that they were not really saved.

Now, two things pop out to me here, one being the laws were put into place to help people understand that they needed a savior, AKA, Jesus, and now He has come, was crucified, and resurrected, so why are they still fighting over laws of Moses?    I think that it’s hard for a leopard to change their spots, so to speak.  I believe completely that people can change, but they have to want to change.

The Pharisees, though some of them are being converted into believing Jesus, they still are holding on to their old ways and doctrines out of fear to change and conform.  When you surrender completely to something you give up the comfort and control of what you once knew, and this can be extremely difficult.

My second thought is, why or is it my place to judge whether someone else is saved or not?  Is it for me to test their hearts or their faith, or their relationship with the Heavenly Father?  Isn’t this between them Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit?  They, and in saying they, I do mean, we, have become so engrossed with testing people’s faith and whether they are saved or not saved that it’s like a job interview.

Hello, my name is Mr. Christian, oh, so you’re a Christian? How do I know you are a real Christian, and not just playing one for the day?  I mean come on people!  We really have nothing better to do with our lives then second guess the purity of someone else’s heart to God.

In Acts 15:9-11 Peter says the same thing, but much nicer.  (9) And He made no difference between us and them, but cleansed their hearts by faith (by a strong and welcome conviction that Jesus is the Messiah, through Whom we obtain eternal salvation in the kingdom of God). (10) Now then, why do you try to test God by putting a yoke on the necks of the disciples, such as neither our forefathers nor we (ourselves) were able to endure? (11) But we believe that we are saved through the grace (the undeserved favor and mercy) of the Lord Jesus, just as they (are).

EXACTLY!!                                               

Why is a person who is circumcised or not circumcised any less saved than I am, who by the way would never be circumcised, because I am a woman, so am I already less saved just by default of sexual orientation?  Do you see how silly that sounds?

People we have actual problems in the world.  We have people who have never heard the name Jesus and we are telling people who love Him and have devoted their lives to Him they are not good enough because of a piece of skin.  Sorry, for being graphic, but that’s what it is.

Why don’t we try to take our conviction we have towards proving that people are saved, correctly, or not, and start just telling people about Jesus and where to find Him.  If we would take all of that energy that we put into finding the fakeness in someone and put it into finding the good in someone, imagine how wonderful the kingdom of God would be.

Do you know that we, the Christians, circumcised or not, we are to be God’s hands and feet in the earth.  Do you think that He would be proud of the petty little arguments we get into with each other, or the judgments we make of each other, when we are to be the role models for the world. 

We are to be the light into the dark world.  We are to be the salt that makes the rest of the world thirsty for what we have.  No wonder people question “religion” and its pretenses wouldn’t you, if you had a chance to listen to a group of Christians talk.   We really need to get it together; me included, and shape up our walk, not just because we need to put on a good show but because we serve a GREAT God.

God deserves for us to give the world our best.  God deserves to be represented in the best light possible.  Yes, we are going to make mistakes and that sometimes is better than being perfect.  When you make that mistake and you know you have made it, go over to the person and apologize, ask for help, do whatever needs done to right the mistake that you just made.   This is how we can show the world God in us.

We don’t need to be perfect, but we most definitely don’t have the quality of heart to judge another person’s heart for God, while we walk with our light turned off.  Plug back in; reconnect with your Lord and Savior. 

Start again, right now, change your mind about the person you’ve been giving the side eye to at work or church, the gym, I don’t care where, but change your mind about them.  Do your job as God’s disciples in this world and show them God in you!!!