"Christians" - United

This started out good, then maybe when into a slight rant at the end with some of my frustrations, but I still think all true. Maybe I just needed to remind myself of how things should be in my life more of.

Acts 11:26b
"The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch."

This was after the Jews had only been preaching to Jews. Then some of those who had been with Stephen went from the cities of Cyprus and Cyrene to a city called Antioch and started telling Greeks. WOAH!

Before the Jews were God's chosen people. In fact, in the chapter before Peter gets busted for going into the place with the gentiles because they were "unclean" and uncircumcised. That's kinda like a catholic going into the home of a baptist, but it was definitely not allowed because the baptist hadn't done all the ritual things that the catholic did. Peter tells them about God had orchestrated it and about the dream and about how God had poured out the Holy Spirit on these non-Jews. So suddenly it's not just a Jewish thing.

They send Barnabas to Antoich to check everything out and he see's the grace of God and encouraging them. He goes and gets Paul and they come back and spend a year there teaching, and it's here they're first called Christians.

Now, I've heard it before said that they're called "Christians" because they were "Christ-like," thats what others saw in them. In other place, I found it says that it's because its all they had in common - not race, culture, or even language. This is the part I started looking at. All they had in common was Christ and it was way more than enough.

That would be like taking a Muslim who knows Jesus (culturally muslim, Christian by choice) from North Africa, a American Christian, a Chinese follower of Christ, a Russian whose been born again and you stick them all in a room and what do you have? Christians. That's it. Culture was way off, language wasn't even the same, they all looked different, but the only thing they had in common was the fact they all knew Jesus was real and had forgiven them of sins and they were cool with it. In fact, they embraced that fact.

I felt this when we were in Botswana, Africa. We did have a small advantage as we both spoke some form of English. But our cultures were different, and we definitely looked different. But these people opened up their homes to us, they invited a group of 20 white American strangers over to their house and said "let me cook for you." Why? "Because you are here for Jesus." Talk about entertaining angels, I think we were entertained by an angel. In a world of differences, they looked directly to the only thing that mattered and said "You are forgiven, I am forgiven, we know Jesus we love Jesus. Here is my home."

I kinda wonder why we close off from each other. I mean even within our denominations we're almost against each other. We segregate and separate. Why? How is this unified? By focusing on our differences, we make it about us. If we really just focused on Jesus, then we would all have the same vision in sight. But apparently too many times we find that our own dress code, politics, what I did, is more important than Jesus.

Why do we search for what divides us rather than what unites us? Because it's what Satan does. It's what sin does. We're afraid of what we don't know. There's lots of ignorance in the world, and rather than holding on to what we do know and that is Jesus, we look at everything else to try to protect ourselves. Which takes the focus off of him and onto us, or onto them.

Maybe it's oversimplifying things, but I just want to know this: Do we love Jesus? Have we both been equally forgiven? Are we trying to follow him? Then what's the issue? They have tattoos and piercing, you don't. They don't wear shoes, you do. They talk really fast and always have to be busy, you work at a culture works at a slower pace. Awesome. I'm not trying to convert anyone to my culture or my way of life. I'm trying to show them a Love greater than anything that has ever been known. We're telling the story and opportunity how everything we've ever done wrong can be wiped away and completely unhumanly, supernaturally forgiven for good. That ridiculous thought should still captivate us, why because it's God poured himself into a human form and got the crap beat out of himself for us. THAT is what we have in common. That my actions just like your actions slammed my King against a tree. I spit on his face. My thoughts laid lashes on his back, across his stomach, onto his legs. That our self-exhaultedness brought him heartbreak and mental pain. Yeah, if you wanna look at what we did, THIS is what we did. Now applaud YOUrself. But this is where we are found. This is where we stand. This is where we are united is this act of sacrificial love. This life that this death brought. This is all we have, so why should we look anywhere else. How can we not open our arms, our lives, our homes, to people because they look different, act different, speak different when they know Jesus just like you do.
Let us come together and celebrate. Let us open our arms.
Let us party with music and dancing, with food and friends.
For we are united together, red and yellow, black and white.
We are not our own.
We are not our actions.
We are not of this world.
We are His.
We are loved.
We are forgiven.
We are Christians.