Answering The Thursday Question

I follow this amazing blog called "Just Wallpapers". The author is dedicated to raising awareness about scary statistics (like that 4,100 people die every day from HIV/AIDS-related illnesses in Sub-Saharan Africa alone) and mobilizing people to share God's love in tangible ways.

He asked a question on his blog recently, and I thought it was interesting, so I decided to answer it here. It's from a book he was reading, called "Just Courage".

"...how do I actually live with bravery, love and significance? And how do I lead others in that path? We have all had moments and glimpses of our own courage. We’ve all been brave when we needed to be. The question is, how can we live more like that? In fact, how can we live like that so consistently that it becomes who we actually are?"

I've said this before, but it's worth repeating. It's my credo, you could say.
For years, I've held that the most important things in life are:
1) My relationship with God, and
2) My witness to others- Christians included.

The nice thing about this set of priorities is that if #1 is in good standing, then #2 usually falls into place. Sometimes I get distracted on focusing on God and I forget that loving God means loving the things He loves, and that includes other people.

For me, the answer to this question lies in striving to be more like Jesus. He was bold and brash when He needed to be, kind and loving other times. He threw tables around in the Temple, and He pulled little children onto His lap. He cursed a fruitless tree and then endured torture and death for our sakes.

Jesus, of course, had wisdom beyond what we can ever hope AND He didn't have that pesky sin nature that bugs us all the time. But regardless, Jesus gave us a command: "If you love me, feed my lambs."

I've often been told that if you tell a lie long enough, you'll start believing it yourself. I know this is true. I struggled for a long time with telling lies, because I thought I needed to make my life more interesting. To this day, there are some stories that I know I lied about for years, but I can't remember the truth because the lies are so pervasive.

But the same is true for truths. For a year or so now I've been saying something to myself that has revolutionised my self-esteem: "I am God's favorite."

Don't tell me it's not true. It is. And this one statement has changed the way I view myself in relation to God. I know longer feel like I have to earn His favor the way I earn everyone else's. I am, just by virtue of being myself- the one God made me to be, treasured most deeply by Him. And it's in this knowledge that I can function more successfully in doing His work.

So when we live more like Christ day to day, eventually it will become natural to us, and we can live in such a way that no one can resist asking us who our role model is.