Mike tagged me a while back with the “five things I dig about Jesus” meme. I’ve been thinking about it a lot this week (mostly during watching-paint-dry caliber boring eight-hour markups), so here it goes with putting proverbial pen to paper:
- He enjoyed spending time with His friends. So many people have the impression that God is far off and uninvolved in human affairs. Reading Jesus’ story gives you a very different impression. While He was always focused on His mission and ministry, you get the sense that He enjoyed life and the people in it because He was living out His Father’s will. They were not in His way. They were, in fact, His mission and ministry.
- He was the very epitome of perfect patience. If I had all the wisdom of the world and went around telling parables so people could “get it,” and they all gave me a blank look or asked obvious questions (as seemed to happen so many times to Jesus), I would lose it or go live alone on a mountain or something. But Jesus cared so much about the outcome – that is, communicating the reality of His Kingdom – that He was always patient and kind to explain, for the umpteenth time, the prophecies His followers had grown up knowing but didn’t understand. And, He is patient with me… which is a miracle in and of itself.
- He didn’t care what people did for a living. Until I lived in D.C., I had very little concept of social strata or the idea of looking up to or down on people based on their title. Having been here a while, I realize how superficial what we say we do in terms of a job is – it’s such a small part of who we are in the scheme of eternity. Whether you’re a pastor or a staff assistant, you can equally be an effective witness – part of the royal priesthood – or an unapproachable, self-righteous “religious person” with little impact for the kingdom. Because Jesus saw people’s hearts, He loved and saw potential in fisherman, shepherds, soldiers, and tax collectors alike. And He didn’t tell them all to quit their jobs and become missionaries. He knew that all those who believed would go away from Him changed and, by the grace of God, would impact their small corner of the world for His glory.
- He demonstrated that love has two parts: meeting a person where they are, and caring about them enough to identify their sin, show them how to overcome it, and enjoy a restored relationship with God.
- And… the best… because of Christ’s work, absolutely nothing can separate me from God’s love.
“… for I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39
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