Finding God in the every day

Week 5 day 5

1 Samuel 16:7 ESV But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

            There are certain standards by which we make judgements about people. Perhaps the weakest standard is that of appearance. Tall, short, thin, fat, sculpted, flabby, dark, light, blonde, brunette, bald we all have created a “standard” in our mind of what the best appearance is. The fallacy in this system of measurement is the fact that we then give to that person “respect” because of what they look like, rather than whether or not their words and ideas communicate truth. Martin Luther King said famously, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Sadly, we seem to be as far away from that ideal today as we ever have been.

In the same way social unrest and political bullying far too often arise out of the misuse of scripture. As an example I would point to Romans 13:1-2 which is often used out of context and deliberatelyso to silence opposition or to point to the “harshness and injustice” inherent in Christianity. Both points are horribly at odds with the heart of Christ. Here, I make an appeal to seek once again “the whole council of God” as rendered in scripture. Do not just grab a verse and use it as a club to beat down anyone who opposes your point of view. The counsel of Jesus would be to pray, relate to the person, examine the idea against what the law and the prophets have said, pray some more, and then act accordingly. Yeah, I know, you’re saying; “Who on earth has that kind of time, and why should I bother?” I think the resulting chaos, we see and the continuing degeneration or evolution of society, depending on your point of view is ample evidence of the need for Christians to follow the “Jesus Way”. We must learn to avoid “knee-jerk” intuition and commentary for the sake of easing our discomfort, and begin to ask, as always, the question; “What would Jesus do?”