Dear Freaks,
I just got a little bit in the book "Jesus for President" by Shane Claiborne read and found the piece very inspiring. First I wanted to put it on my blog, but I thought maybe it's an interesting input for all who read this yet. So, here:
"Looking like Jesus
Remember when ole John the Baptizer sent his disciples to ask Jesus Whether he was the one they were expecting and he did not answer with a simple yes instead Jesus told them to go tell John what they saw him doing He knew that John could read the trail of crumbs (bread crumbs = the track - like Hansel and Gretel)?.. 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 there.
Wheat 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.
In the South, we have a saying: "You are the spittin' image" of someone. Folks still speculate over how exactly the phrase originated,but I've heard it put like this. It's shorthand for "spirit and image". Spittin' image. (Go ahead and try it out; it won't hurt.) For us, it meant more than just that you look like that person. It goes beyond just appearance to include character and temperament. It means that you remind people of that person. You have their charisma. You do the same thing they did. In the truest sense, Christians are to be the spittin 'image of Jesus in the world. We are to be the things he was. We are to preach the things he preached and live the way he lived. We are to follow in the footsteps of our Rabbi Sun closely that we get his dust on us. We are to remind the world of Jesus. The criterion for Whether something is a manifestation of the kingdom of God is the person of Jesus. Does it look like him? "
I thought it was quite confronting. It is so (relatively) easy to say" I am a Christian "(Bush and Hitler have said yes too). But you see really? The things I do now (Fair Trade Bio & buy, etc) could just as well make an eco-hippie without God. I want to encourage you, and especially for me this week a "spittin 'image" of Jesus to be. Maybe I can even love and serve people who are not my friends anyway.
thicknesses blessing you wish to Sharon from the (not so) far west! :)
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