Day 161: Following the Prime Example

"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.  But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.  To him, the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out."  John 10:1-3

This passage spoke to me while I was reading today.

It made me think about all the different scams that we encounter these days.  It reminded me about the adage: it's too good to be true.  Just at its base value, the above passage can be applied to almost everything in life.  When we take shortcuts, we will not get what we want.  When we steal and lie to get to a position of power, the people under us aren't going to listen.

As I read further, I started thinking about how this passage applies to our churches today.  It reminded me of the fact that a life of faith isn't meant to be easy.  It's not about self-harm, but at the same time, it's not going to be a walk in the park.  But, at the same time, we have many out there who preach that everything is going to be easy, that to have money is to be blessed and to be poor is to be cursed.  There are some who have continued the rude tradition of preaching that to be sick or to be disabled in any way is to be cursed by God for any number of reasons.  Once again, the above passage shows us that it's not about breaking through the window or going through the open back door that will bring us to salvation; it's finding our way to the door that will.

Again, I realized another important fact by reading this above passage: we have a savior who is our true shepherd.  For the longest time, I didn't feel much whenever people would repeat the phrase, "Jesus is the good shepherd."  What does that have to do with me?  I certainly don't work on a farm, and I don't see myself doing that anytime soon.  Even more, nobody would care to explain that to me.  I'd just hear that same phrase over and over again.  In my reading today, I learned that Jesus is our good shepherd not because he rules over us and oppresses us with his supreme authority but because he has gone through everything that we will face in life, and he continues to go through all of that with us today, right now.  This passage is a great explanation because it uses a metaphor that is so good for us.  Jesus, the shepherd, walks through the same door that we walk through.  Jesus walks with us.  Rather than just appearing out of nowhere in the sheepfold, Jesus walks the same way we do, and he leads us.  It's up to us if we want to follow the person who has gone through that door and knows what lies beyond or the ones who just appear there for a moment and then jump the fence to escape.

Day 142: Examples of Light

"This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.  If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.  But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin."  1 John 1:5-7

This passage should give us all hope.

It first defines how we are to live our lives.  We need to make sure that our faith manifests itself in our lives through our actions.  We teach the best and spread the Gospel the best through our actions, for that is how others can conceptualize things.  Over the past week now, I have made many Chinese dumplings (餃子 and 小籠包).  I'm a guy who likes to learn things from books, and that works quite well with most recipes I've encountered.  However, the trademark of dumplings is their pleats.  I have read countless instructions on how to perform them, but they all turned out to be disastrous and plain odd.  But, after watching one video, I was able to understand how to fold them properly.  After a few dumplings for practice (and eating, of course) I feel that I have made quite some progress.

The way we live our lives becomes a light for many who are around us.  If we demonstrate our faith, just like a video, people will be able to understand all that they have heard from Christianity.  In fact, we too will begin to understand the bible and teachings better when we live our faith.

The latter part of this passage is what should give us all hope.  It says that when we live our lives faithfully, we will have fellowship not just with God, but with everybody around us.  Now, it is amazing enough to have fellowship with God, but it must be reassuring to be in the company of the many faithful who are walking in the light.  People who live around us, going through many of our same challenges, should make us feel closer to God.  The reason why we'll be in good company is because we will all be heading in the same direction, albeit from different starting points.  When we wander without God, we will end up in so many places that are unfulfilling.  Many will actually find themselves heading backwards towards destruction.  But, when we walk towards and in the light of God, we will find all of those who are walking in the same direction.  Those people will be able to dust off your shoes, provide you with water, hand you a coat if you need one, and will welcome you to the glory of God.  We need to provide that fellowship, because it is our duty as Christians.  The light of God is God's unconditional love for all of us.  When we provide that fellowship, we will see the light grow not only around us, but also in us.

Day 117: The Example

"For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted."  Hebrews 2:18

This is one of the greatest reasons for which I follow Jesus.

We, as humans, like to find things in common with one another.  When we need to speak to large crowds of people, one of the things people recommend is that we find something in common with all those people.  Even more poignant, how many times have you immediately responded to news with something that makes the news about you or connected in some way to you?  When somebody says, "My friend is not doing so well right now," you immediately reply with, "Oh yeah, I've had something myself."  We always want there to be a connection.

Not surprisingly, we want for the same connection to exist between us and our God.  If I may be brash, take a look at what so many artists interpret how Jesus looks.  Look at all the many depictions of Jesus in our movie screens, TV screens, pictures, ads, paintings.  Jesus was a brunette, white man, with long hair and a not too long beard!  Now, if we look to scientific evidence, there is almost no way Jesus could have looked like that.  Yet, that Jesus that shows up in our English-speaking, America-centric because he looks like your run of the mill American man, with one or two distinguishing features.  That depiction of Jesus connects us as Americans with him (although I don't quite identify, with me not being of directly European descent, but hear me out).

Depictions aside, though, we do have something universal about Jesus that transcends his Middle Eastern heritage or Hellenistic Gospel or any of the countless traditions that have risen from his ascension.  Jesus lived as a human.  Jesus felt the everyday pains that we do, the hunger, the heat, the struggle of working for long periods of time, the frustrations with friends, the human desire to survive.  On top of all that, Jesus shows us so many ways we can overcome the temptations that face us everyday.  We are not alone in our struggle, and we are being offered a helping hand.  Reach out and take it.

Day 116: Faithful Servants

"Salt is good; but if the salt has lost its flavor, how shall it be seasoned?  It is neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill, but men throw it out.  He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"  Luke 14:34-35

I feel that because I have heard the salt metaphor thrown around in church for so long I have started to forget the message.

Jesus says this after talking about what it takes in order to follow him.  We need to be prepared to give our whole lives over for him.  And that's where the idea of this odd kind of salt comes in.  I don't think I've ever heard of salt losing its saltiness, but if it loses it, it has absolutely no purpose.  It's not a pretty stone to look at, especially in the way we have it granulated these days.  It's just there.

Jesus, then, is calling us to remember our calling in life.  We have to remember what our purpose is, which is to serve.  We need to build communities for God.  We have to spread the Gospel, the love.  However, that means that we have to be ready to take on the mission.  We can't let anything drag us one way or another.  I find that we are filled with fear so many times that we start to make up excuses for not going forward with our calling in life.  We start to fear the lack of money in order to join a ministry.  We fear the loss of friends after devoting our lives to God.  We fear losing all of our material possessions after following God.  But that's where we can become this saltless salt.

If we are truly the body of Christ, we need to be the strong bones, the pliable skin, the healthy organs, the plentiful tissue.  We can't be just half of that, for if we do that, we instead become something more like an abnormal growth, a tumor, or even a cancer to the body.  Instead, we have to look around us and figure out how to build up our community and how to bring others to Jesus.  It's one thing to know every word in the bible, but it's a completely different thing to put it all into practice.

In order for us to live as good salt and as good servants, we need to be preparing ourselves constantly.  It's not just about saying that we accept Jesus as our savior, nor is it only about having a degree in theological studies; it's about living our faith.  When we live our faith, everything we do will become a lesson for those around us to learn, and a lesson for us to grow from.  We have the example, Jesus.  Now is the time for us to follow his lead. 

Day 063: Recommendation Letter

"You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart."                           2 Corinthians 3:2-3

When applying for a school or a job, you usually need a letter of recommendation or a reference.  In both instances, it's a way for the employer to become familiar with who you are.  In these letters, you can usually find someone writing about all the best that you have done and all the good that you are.

From the above passage, we can see that we are letters of recommendation of God, for we are reflections of all the good that God has done.  God created us with many gifts, talents, and other positive traits.  We need to remember this when we go about living our lives, because we need to show that we truly are children of God and not just bags of bones on earth.

Another thing that comes to mind from this passage is that we need to be sure that we are producing results with our work.  Now, results aren't going to look the same for every person.  For some, good results are a massive church with thousands of congregants.  For others, good results will be your living each day.  The world around us, the things and people with which we surround ourselves, reflect who we are as people.  We always need to work to produce good signs about us in those who are around us.  In order to accomplish this, though, is to remember that we too are recommendation letters.  When we finally write ourselves to be perfect, with everything in line, and with all the good in our letters representing all that we are, we can start to write great ones on other people.  We are all called to build each other up as a community: a community of successes.

Take some time this Lent to reevaluate your spiritual life.  Ask for God to write all the good things on you, and ask how you can write great things onto your friends and neighbors.