I get excited when I see people who unashamedly show their love for Jesus Christ. I had the same excitement when a woman walked up to me wearing a T-shirt and a cap that boldly had Jesus Christ written all on it. Her cap had on it, “walk with Jesus” and her T-shirt had something similar, so you can imagine the joy in my heart when I saw her and more so when she approached me.
My joy was short-lived as she started to speak with me, her demeanor, her mannerism was nothing close to what I was expecting, it did not exactly portray the Christ-like nature I was expecting. It did not even come close. I was so sad as she left my side. I thought to myself, “what if someone was on the verge of making a decision to stand for Christ or forget about Him forever”. Interaction with that lady may have sealed the decision to forget Christ. “People on the streets who were observing or may have interacted with her may have gotten a bad representation of Christ”
If I was not saved, and this lady had spoken to me about walking with Jesus as she had on her cap, there was no way I would give her a listening ear.
I may be wrong about the woman’s character, perhaps she was having an awful day, or perhaps she doesn’t know Jesus. Perhaps she was given the merch and she absolutely does not care about the letterings on her outfit.
Whatever the case may be, that interaction got me thinking about myself and other sisters & brothers in Christ who have been called to represent Jesus here on earth. A sermon I listened to some time ago talked about how the world does not read the bible anymore and how the world read the believer’s life. Abraham who is our father in faith lived a life of great faith in God, he also lived an exemplary life. He must have thought nobody paid attention to him or how he lived his life until he wanted to purchase a cave to bury his wife. The owners of the cave told him that they had seen that he was a mighty leader and they were willing to give him the cave for free. Genesis 23:6
He was a foreigner in their midst, most likely minding his business 100% of the time that he lived amongst the Hittites- Genesis 23:1-5.
I am writing this blog post as a reminder to myself and to you who may be reading that we are being read and observed by the world. When they look at us, what do they see?
- Do they see Christ being formed in us?
- Do they see us conforming to the image of Christ?
And most importantly, we are children of God, representing Him here on earth, called to behave like Him because He made us just like Him- Ephesians 5:1
- Do we represent Him well?
- Do we choose to do things that He does just like Jesus? John 5:19
- Do we give ourselves time to submerge in the pool of His love so we can love easily?
Submerging ourselves in His presence and under His tutelage is the only way we can Know Him and hence behave like Him. And so I implore you to give yourself to becoming Christ-like and not only be called a Christian.
I pray that God gives us the grace to learn from Him and remain in Him, so we are able to imitate Him in character and living in Jesus’ name.