What if.

A glimpse into my journalling last night. I know it's nothing new, but it hit me anew last night:


Holy God, you are worthy. Of a child-like faith and of my honest praise and of my unashamed love. Of a holy life and of my sacrifice and of my unashamed love. You are worthy. Oh so worthy!

If I were he who lived as the Lord.
I don’t know, but what if I were to live as Jesus? My sermon was about witnessing. I said we are not witnesses of Jesus’ life. We are instead witnesses and living examples of the Good News of Jesus Christ in our lives. We were not blessed with the chance to live in the 1st century and observe Jesus, so we cannot witness him. But what if we let others witness Jesus by living our lives as Jesus?

I don’t mean that we should all have some strange Christ-complex so that people think we should be in a mental institute. And I don’t mean people should abandon modern life and choose a 1st century lifestyle. I don’t even mean we should be wandering teachers without a home or family or possessions. I mean, what if we all lived our lives just like normal people, but as we did so, we did it with Jesus-like attitudes?

So we’re engineers and farmers and teachers and taxi drivers and attorneys and bakers and athletes and pastors and doctors and writers . . . and we live in love. Not romantic love, though that may be part of some of our lives. No, I mean a broader, all encompassing, ever present, unconditional, unashamed love. And we’d all have that love in common.

So we’d share and smile and help and serve and listen and use our talents, and we’d do it all not for our own glory or fame, but for the glory of the One we serve. That means sacrifice. That means spending less money on ourselves. Not so that we suffer, but in order that other suffer less. It means living consciously and loving generously. It means stepping into the role you’ve been called to and living it like Jesus for Jesus.

What if people really did that? What if I really did that?
Then what would life look like? What would the world look like?
I don’t know, but God would be smiling! And I’d like that.