Gidday mates,

Just received this on my incoming email and thought it so important, I wanted to blog it for all to read. So have a look at what John Fischer has written and I have a few thoughts to follow it up.

CATCH OF THE DAY

Love like Jesus

by John Fischer

I opened a newsletter this morning from my good friend Robbie Goldman who heads up Dry Bones, a ministry to homeless teenagers in downtown Denver, and found a sobering conclusion to our discussions this week about Christians leading with the hellfire and brimstone message. The lead story is all about Robbie and his staff’s shock and awe over the behavior of Christian protesters at the Democratic National Convention in Denver earlier this summer where signs like “Ask me why YOU deserve HELL,” and “WARNING: Baby Killing Women, Party Animals, Rebellious Women, So Called Christians, Liberals, Jesus Mockers, Porno Freaks, Muslims, Drunks, Homosexuals, Sex Addicts, Mormons… GOD WILL JUDGE YOU!” greeted them along with insults hurled from the holders of those signs, as in “Can you even read?” and “What planet are you from?”

“We watched the spectacle with a growing sense of despair and sadness,” Robbie wrote. “I was sick to my stomach. The scene was one of the single most heartbreaking experiences of my life.”

Examples like this may be extreme cases of misrepresenting Christ, but harboring even the slightest attitude of judgment or hatred is only a matter of being a few degrees away from this. It’s headed in the same direction. To the degree that we let any of these feelings take hold, we might as well be a sign-holding screamer of insulting epithets.

“I walked away with my co-workers; some of us were crying. Others like me simply walked in silent shock. Above all the emotions – sadness, anger, shame – I felt something else that had a stronger pull. I was motivated and rejuvenated. More than ever I was convinced of my job, and your job, to love. We must re-define Christianity to a watching world.

“What if we became a group of people known for the way we love homosexuals? What if we became a group of people known for coming alongside those struggling with addictions? What if we became a group of people known for the way we embrace people of other religions and backgrounds? What if we became a group of people known for the way we love women who have had, or are thinking about having abortions? What if instead of calling these women murderers, we told them how much they and their children are worth? What if we decided right now, today, to adopt would-be-aborted babies? We tell young women not to have abortions, but are we willing to give them another option?”

Robbie concluded with, “I am convinced that when we love like Jesus, we are slowly but surely helping to prepare someone’s heart for God to do His work. Love well, brothers and sisters. Re-define Christ for the people in your life with love and see what happens.”

And I can’t help but think that whoever carried that sign about the Baby Killers and Porno Freaks is in for a big surprise when he is eventually welcomed into heaven by all the people his sign condemned. There will be tears.

[For more on this subject, see: "The Separation of Church and Hate: Finding the Way to Real Cultural Change" and more of my related articles for Breakpoint.org at http://www.breakpoint.org/listings.aspid=159&display=Display+by+Author&authorId=1436]

[For more on Dry Bones, see www.drybonesdenver.org]

BARRY’S COMMENTS :

My Comments are just my personal thoughts, and with additional information, my world view changes from day to day. The truth of it is, we can know 99% about all there is to know, but the 1% we don’t know will totally change our understanding of the 99% that we did know……”His mercies are new every morning as our Spirit is renewed daily.” I’m not the same person today that I was yesterday, and I’ll not be the same person tomorrow that I am today. As we die to ourselves daily, we are moment by moment transformed into the image of Christ, and we can say like Paul, “It is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me,” as we will have become ONE with Him.

We know that Christ died for ALL of mankind. His blood has purchased the forgiveness of every sin committed by every sinner. The tragedy is, so few people know they have been forgiven, and how will they ever experience this forgiveness if they see and hear only hatred and judgement streaming from our eyes and lips. It doesn’t matter how much scripture we can recite or what comes out of our mouths, if people can’t see Christ in our eyes, everything else has the sound of clanging brass.

Since Christ has established forgiveness for all, how dare we judge anyone whom Christ gave His life to forgive. Our only mandate is to love one another, and to do good to those who do not yet understand they are forgiven.

Barry

Every sixty seconds we spend angry, upset or mad, is a full minute of happiness we’ll never get back SO Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly, Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably, And never regret anything that made you smile.

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we’re here we should dance.

Well, we all see things differently don’t we. I mean, if you had a thousand people holding hands in a big circle, put an elephant down in the middle of them, and asked them to describe what they were seeing, they’d give you a thousand different descriptions of the elephant. In fact, our left eye even sees things differently than our right eye – that’s why we have two of them, to give us depth perception.

Eighteen months ago I had never heard of the name Obama. I know nothing about the man. He just seems to have popped up out of the political quagmire. I believe NOTHING that comes out of Washington. Democrats/Republicans – flip sides of the same coin, and the whole political system is broken and very possibly unfixable. To me, the President of the United States is nothing more than a hood ornament on an automobile. Every four years the entire nation is caught up in this great “dog and pony” show or should I say “elephant and donkey” show, and are totally distracted from the true forces that are driving this international society. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say, no, I won’t be voting either for Obama or McCain. My wife is voting for McCain as she says she has to vote her conscience, but living here in California, I think the whole state is going to go for Obama anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

My interest is not in the hood ornament, but in the person behind the wheel, and none of us “plebs” have a clue who that is. We just watched a series on television called Rome. It was like watching our modern politicians not caring how many have to die, telling whatever lies they feel will get them the most votes, so I have to declare myself a-political! From my perspective the answer lies within the human heart – problem is most of us human beings find out heads to be no longer connected to our hearts. Instead of giving $700 billion to the bankers and investors who got us into this mess in the first place, they could have divided that money up and given it to the citizens of the United States. It would have come to over $50 thousand dollars per person over 18 years old – can you imagine what that would have done to boost our economy, but no, they don’t give the money to the grass roots and let it percolate up to the top. They pour truckloads of money into the pockets of greedy, selfish, immoral human beings and it doesn’t appear they really care about “Main Street” as they call it, where the working class lives.

Anyway, sorry to have gone on like this, but I was triggered this morning with a political question and I feel the solution will never come from politics. (NEVER)

Ghandi had the right idea. He was assassinated. Anwar Sadat was a man of peace. He was assassinated. Martin Luther King spoke of the brotherhood of man. He was assassinated. John Kennedy wanted to get us out of Vietnam. He was assassinated. Jesus Christ gave us a message of forgiveness and love. He was assassinated. Socrates apparently did all he could to get people to think for themselves and not let others tell them what to do. He was assassinated. That’s why I take an a-political stand in this world I find myself living in.

Peace to you all, my friends, and you are my friends, ’cause there ain’t nobody gonna tell me who my friends are or who they aren’t.

Barry