Faith Venture

So recently I’ve bee alluding to the fruit of the Spirit–love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I think this fits individually as a model of the type of person we should try to become, just like what Paul was writing in his pastoral letters that I’ve been discussing about modeling the church.

Jon Swanson, in his blog 300 Words a Day, expanded on this a little, saying, “In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul explores the concept of Christ’s love controlling us. We will look differently than we did before His love controlled us. We may seem crazy to others (verse 13). Or not. It doesn’t matter. Part of Christ’s love controlling us is that we start to look at people differently (verse 16). Our perspectives become new. We’re like a growing plant that continuously produces new flowers. We look at people through the eyes of Jesus. He wept when he saw pain. He was angry when he saw injustice. He accepted others who society rejected – and then asked them to be willing to change.”

That’s what I was thinking a little when I thought about feeling what Jesus felt when he looked at his people and sighed. Sometimes I get angry at injustice. Sometimes I sigh when people just fall off the path and become lost.

I’m thinking about this model of a person. I think I’ll explore it for a while.

By the way, I’m in Anaheim, California at another conference. I’ll try to post at night before I go to bed. Usually I prefer at 5:30 am when I rise. But that would be late, now. There is a lot of energy in these conferences, and I’m working on a special project that will keep me quite busy. Not to mention a second conference by a competitor of the first Wednesday and Thursday right across the street. But I try to cover the work, say hi to lots of people I know, have fun, and still contemplate God.

Reading the beginning of Romans where Paul is trying hard to convince people to leave old categories separating people behind and enter a new, universal fellowship with God.

Then I thought about the apostles at the same time who went into Syria–not only to Jews who lived there, but also to Syrians. Christianity had spread to Greeks and Romans already before Paul. It had spread among Syrians and Egyptians (we know from reading the Desert Fathers among other writings).

Just think if people had adopted that model. Think of the strife, fighting and bitterness in so much of the world today that could have been avoided.

But then I think of the hundreds of years of European history where Christians fought against each other in often bloody wars. Catholics against Protestant. So, I guess the mere adoption of a Christian facade overlaid on tribal identity wasn’t quite the answer.

We need, individually, to return to Paul’s writing and absorb it. As he said to his own time, “there is neither Jew nor Greek.” We need to feel that in our hearts. We will not categorize people in order to judge them. We will accept people and love them.