Lord, Save Us From Your Followers!

So, many of you may have already seen this documentary. I am sure that you have your opinions and some of you may have already written it off. Well, I just saw it for the first time tonight, and was elated to hear and see some of the issues that I discuss being brought to the forefront - questions about HOW we treat one another, not simply what we stand for.

We are free to disagree. And we are free to be unproductive, angry, bitter, condescending, hate-filled individuals. But if we call ourselves Christians, we're actually not. If we are a Christ follower, we willingly return that gift of free will back to the One who gave it to us, and we commit that gift to His greatest purpose. And I think this film really helped shed light on what so many Christians are trying to do in this country.

Committing our gift of free will to back to God means that we will go where he wants us to go and love who he wants us to love when he tells us to. And whom do we love? Well, sometimes we like to refer to them as the "lost." Jesus called them "the least of my brethren." So if you are a Christian, who qualifies as the "least"? The homeless? The poor? The infirmed? The dying? That's what we like to think, but I have always felt there is more to it than that.

Scripture has told me that the only "religion" that is pure and faultless and acceptable in the eyes of the Lord is to care for the widowed and orphaned in their distress and to keep one's self pure. So, are the least of them widows and orphans? No. We are ALL the least of his brothers. Straight, gay, male, female, rich, poor, homeless, addicted, pregnant, sterile, black, white, or mixed/other.

Honestly, how old does a person have to be before we stop considering them an orphan? How much time has to pass before a man or woman is no longer considered widowed? And how many of us can fall into that category - especially if, as Christians, we look at these people in the light of their orphaned state with respect to a relationship with "Father" God? Orphaned does not mean that the parents are dead, just that the children have no relationship with them for one reason or another. Isn't that the same with some of the people Christians consider "lost"?

There can be no accident that the two great commandments are to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy mind and all thy spirit/soul, and the second is to love thy neighbor as thyself, and the only pure religion is to care for widowed and orphaned in their distress and stay pure. They are commanding the same thing! In another way, if you are commanded to Love God with ALL your heart, and loving God is to be obedient to His commands, and His command is love thy neighbor as thyself, and ALL is 100%, how can we have any capacity left to love our neighbors?

It's BECAUSE loving our neighbors IS obedient to God and therefore IS loving him. You cannot love God without loving your neighbors. You cannot be obedient to God without loving your neighbors. You can't love your neighbors without caring for the widowed and orphaned in their distress, and that includes everyone! This doesn't mean that as Christians we are called to accept, love and endorse every lifestyle or action. But it does mean that we are called to respect our neighbors freedom to make those choices, to love them in spite of those choices because God loves them and us equally.

I know right now, some of you are arguing in your heads that the Great Commission calls Christians to go forth and spread the Gospel. No arguments here. My questions are not the "what to do?" it's the "how we're doing it?"

I recently attended a volunteer appreciation night at The Rock Church in San Diego. Over 4000 volunteers were in attendance. These people had logged over 253,000 hours of community service in the last year! And they did it much in the same way that the end of Lord, Save Us demonstrates. They are there to be the body of Christ. To be his hand that holds, his arms that hug, his ear that listens, his tenderness that cares. But there's no proselytizing no condemnation. Because salvation comes by faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen, meaning its a work of the heart and no man can change the heart of another.

This is why Christians, I encourage you all, not to be afraid of gay people and the "homosexual agenda" - don't be afraid of the "perfidious Jews" or "radical Muslims" - don't fear the homeless drug addict - don't be afraid of the wandering prostitute. Why? Because before they were all these things, they were born human beings. Many of them Christened in the same churches you attend now. And you can't reason, rationalize or determine where their lives went wrong and what they did to cause their misfortune, or what God's purpose is in their lives. All you can do is stand in the gap and offer a hug when someone calls them a name, live as a neighbor respecting them as people with a different opinion, volunteer in the trenches and wash the hair and feet and change the clothes of those in need, shut your mouths and open your ears and the hearts to hear the troubles and scars of a damaged spirit.

Because I believe firmly folks, that truly living like Christ, is not the preaching and shouting and swaying to contemporary Christian music - it's picking up a cross that is weighing someone else down to the ground and carrying it with them or for them for as long as God allows, while the world hurls its sins and insults upon your forgiven spirit and flesh. And sometimes while the very people you are helping do the same.

We were made in his image, to follow a path that pays the cost for those we have been called to love. Everyone. Perhaps by loving like this, people will see us as my close friend, and now Christ following Jew, put it - "living out what [we] say [we] believe." That changes hearts, and changed hearts change lives.