What difference does it make?

Philip Yancey, while writing his book Reaching for the invisible God, asked his friends this question: If a seeking person came to you and asked how your life as a Christian differs from his or hers as a moral non-Christian, what would you say? I've been thinking about what my answer would be.
I wonder if people see anything more to me than a decent guy who goes to church on Sundays. Shouldn't there be be more to a follower of Christ than that, I ask myself. And if there is, shouldn't it be apparent to everybody?

If I understand my faith correctly, I think the biggest difference being a Christian makes in my life is how I love others. Jesus said to his disciples, Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognise that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.” (John 13:34-35). 

Christian love is radically different from any other love. Our natural love is always dependant on who the recipient is. We love people either because they are related to us or because they poses the qualities we admire; beauty, intelligence, courage, friendliness, integrity, social status etc. Christian love is unconditional. The message of the gospel is pretty simple, we had no desirable qualities that God should love us and yet he did. Go and do likewise, Jesus said, while explaining the parable of the Good Samaritan. 

Loving people who have nothing to offer in return is hard. It means caring for people who might not appreciate the time, effort, money or self sacrifice you made for them. It means loving the unlovables. Followers of Christ love like that. But sadly, most people do not find the 'church people' that loving these days. In conversations with my non-Christians friends, I often hear about how judgemental, unforgiving and hypocritical the church is. Most also claim to be living more 'moral' lives than the alleged 'Christians'. It grieves my heart to admit they are right to some extent. Often, the church does not seem to follow it's central teaching; love God and love others. 

However, there are plenty to Christians, that live out that message everyday. Consider the guy I heard about last week. One of South Korea's top surgeons, he leaves his six figure salary and comfortable life and goes to a remote village in northern China, where he's been running a hospital for the poor for the last 15 years. It takes more than a sense of philanthropy to do that. He could have sent money for a hospital and doctors if he wanted to. But somehow Christian love demands sacrifice, it's a giving of your life to others that makes love so powerful. 

I recently watched a little know film titled 'Noble' based on the life of Christina Noble, a children's rights campaigner and charity worker who has changed the lives of thousands of street children in Vietnam through her work. Christina had a difficult life herself. Born in Ireland in the mid 40s, Christina was sent to live in an orphanage at age ten, gang-raped while living on the streets, her son forcibly adopted, and a victim of domestic abuse. Yet despite all these hardships, this woman went on to fulfil her vision of caring for the abused street children of Vietnam. 

What compels these people to do what they do? I believe it's the message of the gospel. Loved people, love people. And most importantly, they love the people that ordinary 'moral' people don't love. The ones that have nothing to offer. That's called grace. That's what Christianity is all about. And that is what makes all the difference.  

What do they think of me?

John Donne penned the words, 'No man is an island, entire of itself'. We are taught that man is a social animal. We have to be around people in order to survive. And what others do, how they interact with us, affects us greatly, even determines our behaviour. Perhaps one of the greatest of all questions we ask ourselves is the question: What do they think of me? What is the opinion of other people about me? Do they like me or not? Do they think I am beautiful or not? Do they thinks I am 'cool' or not? We tend to spend our lifetime trying to 'fit in' the culture around us, we labor to develop an image of ourselves which would be acceptable and appreciated by people around us. We all want people to like us. And we tend to go great lenghts in order to achieve this objective.We make sure our clothes are current fashion, we listen to popular music, we try to keep up with the latest gossip, all beacuse we don't want to be left out of anything.

In the world today, where Christians are considered 'anti-everything', it is quite impossible to fit into the life around us. There are certain things a follower of Christ cannot do, certian things he should not hear or see, certain words he should not speak, certain places he cannot go. Where does he fit in, then? Jesus said, "If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you".(John 15:19,NIV)

Yet,the question still nags me, and I believe it nags us all as human beings; what do they think of me? As a Christian, called out of the world, I still want the world to like me. The opinion of other people around me is extremely important.I still ask, what do they think of me? So what do I do then, do I go on living, saying things like 'I don't care what anybody thinks about me', yet deep down I know that I really do care...
or I can turn to Jesus.... What would He have done? What did he do? No deep meditations required. The scriptures tell us, to my great relief, that Jesus too, asked this question. Three gospel writers, (Matthew, Mark and Luke) record that Jesus asked his disciples, "Who do the crowds say I am?"
They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life."And then he asked them,"But what about you?", "Who do you say I am?" and Peter answered, "The Christ of God." Luke records that, eight days later, Peter, James and John accompany Jesus to a mountain to pray, and they hear a voice from heaven saying 'This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.'

I see an answer to my question in these scriptures. What do they think of me? Jesus starts with the crowds, he gets a mixed response. Jesus doesn't discuss their response, it seems to me he wasn't especially interested in what they had to say, probably because he knew, that for every person that likes you, you'll find a multitude that hates you. And here's lesson 1: Never mind the crowd, you can never please them all. The fact that Jesus repeats the question when asking his disciples goes to show that, he was far more interested in what they had to say. Lesson 2: The opinion of people closest to you is very important. I believe that's because they know you inside out, they see the real you rather than an image the crowd sees. And even if one of them appreciates who you are (like Peter among the disciples), you're on the right track. And finally, consider the voice from heaven. I do not believe Jesus needed to hear that God the Father loved him and was pleased with Him;his disciples needed to hear it. So God made sure that they heard Him clear, and here we learn the most important lesson: Make sure you are pleasing God, and He'll make sure that those around you know well what they should think of you!
Its about time I start asking myself, 'What does God think of me?'.