the mystery of it all

January 14, 2010

God has willingly placed into our hands the responsibility of spreading the gospel, of telling others about Jesus, and (most of all) to live out that gospel and lifestyle that God has called us to to serve as a testimony and witness to others of our God and the redemption He has promised. I find that amazing. God has, in a sense, left His reputation, His good and powerful name and what feelings will be brought up by the mention of His name into our hands. For what we do here on earth reflects to others the God we worship and our beliefs.

On one hand it seems so foolish. God is letting us depraved wretched sinners be His representatives and witness on this earth. Our lives are so imperfect and sinful, and we are still works in progress, closer to our beginning state as ugly balls of mud, than that final state of beautiful vessels transformed such that we can bring glory to God. And God lets us ugly balls of mud take a part in carrying out His work and His purposes, when He, the God of the universe, creator of everything, perfect, mighty, and awesome, could do a MUCH MUCH better and perfect job of carrying out His will and purposes on His own. Yet, He gives us the opportunity to work with Him, to carry out His will on earth, and to, essentially, be His body on this earth, for we are, after all, the body of Christ.

I suppose this is why on the other hand, God's ways are so loving indeed. God gives us the opportunities to bring His name to the ends of the earth, knowing full well that some will abuse that opportunity and use their own wisdom and ways to carry about it while others will come to God for wisdom and guidance and let His Spirit work through them. Even those who strive to really follow God's will may mess up at times and disappoint, but, amazingly, God is okay with that. I believe we often ask for perfection from others, forgetting that even God does not expect us to be perfect; all he asks is that we truly and wholeheartedly strive for it, and He will fill in those gaps where we will inevitably fail because of our flawed nature, but His grace and His love is definitely sufficient.

It's always intriguing for me to look through people's facebook profiles and see how they describe their religion: Jesus lover, I love Jesus!, Christian, Jesus is my everything, etc. I wonder, though, if we've forgotten what a weighty matter it is to be a follower of Christ.

In the beginning stages of the church, being known as a follower of Christ meant for them to live in constant danger of being flogged, naked, killed by the sword, jeered, imprisoned, tortured, sawed in half, stoned, and burned alive. It was no light or easy thing to be a Christian, and they took on the name of Christ knowing the full weight and responsibility of it since it really was laying down their lives for Christ. But today, we have it different and easier, and so I think it becomes easy to forget the weightiness of letting others know we are followers of Christ, that we are His witnesses on this earth, and that others will look at our lives and see if what we claim to be so precious and glorious to us really is that precious to us in our lives.

On the other hand, let us not become so prideful as to think that God has allowed us to have full power and reign such that we may mess up His plans. While God has allowed us to be 'big' enough to take a part in His will and ultimately have a part in His entire plan for redemption, we are not so 'big' as to be able to completely surprise Him and mess up His plan. I suppose the amazing thing is the fact that God has, with His foreknowledge, included in His perfect plan and will our imperfections and failings such that all will still ultimately bring about God's entire design and purpose for all eternity and for this world. And so it becomes a balance of knowing the weightiness and responsibility we've been given, while also relying on His grace because we know that while we should strive to be perfect as God is perfect, we will fail, but He will catch us with His grace, mercy, and love.

And so I both love being known as a follower of Christ (which is essentially what 'Christine' means) and tremble at the fact that I can be called such. I love it because everything else in this world becomes dull in comparison to the call to follow Jesus, to be a part of carrying out His will and His plans for this world's redemption. I love it because it is indeed a high honor, but I also tremble at how weighty it is to be a follower of Christ, because honestly I am so unworthy to be such, to be allowed to take a part in carrying out God's will and purposes when I've got a 100% chance of messing up, failing, and doing things imperfectly. But of course, with that fear comes also the awesome realization that my God is big enough to take into account my failings and that what He is looking for are not perfect people, but flawed people who are willing to let Him work His purposes through them.