Some time ago I started this blog with “Make a Difference A Day”. Well here we go again returning to the base from which this blog began. For the benefit of those who came upon this blog more recently I will re-iterate the foundations of my philosophy.
M.A.D. came from a group with which I was involved many years ago. The catchcry of the group was “Make A Difference a Day” and its focus and application was toward the people we came into contact on that day. Our intent was to present Jesus into the lives of those we worked with but without doing it in a “preachy” sort of way.
A long time later I believe that we need to approach our lives in just this way again. Not that this is meant to be accusatory or present a “guilt trip” about the way we live. If that was the case then I would call myself the chief of failures.
No, my intent here is to give a focussed significance to our lives for the Master. There is a verse in Romans which says in paraphrase “Don’t allow the world to squeeze you into its pattern but resist the pressure to prove the truth of God.” It can be found in Romans 12 if you want to look it up.
You see the “Church” is pretty much on the nose throughout the western world. It isn’t because we the believers are being too “Preachy” and it isn’t because we are too “Religious”. No if we care enough to ask our unchurched friends what the problem is they invariably will answer with words like “so what” or even “hypocrites.”
Their basic problem is that as they look around at believers they discover that we are doing exactly the same things as they do but claim to live on a higher level. We need to live to a higher aspiration than the nonbelievers around us but the truth is that we regularly fail to live out the life that the Master talks about and demonstrates in the four books that tell of His life on earth.
What I am suggesting here is the kinds of actions in our lives that make others ask the questions like why are you doing what you do? This is not some “Religious action” but small things like getting someone a coffee or taking care of business to lighten another’s load.
Some of the reason that believers do not get taken seriously is that we tend to get into cloistered chapters and close ranks but work as if the boss was absent. We then need to deal with the fact that others have been watching us and have deemed us no different to themselves. Thus the people judge that our God is of no real value and that they can carry on regardless. Obviously this is wrong in fact even though we think we are living for God
Whenever we go away I make it a plan to leave the place in a better state than when we arrived. There is no merit in this especially if there is no-one around but just as we try to make “random acts of kindness” among those we encounter in our daily life we leave that place in a better place and those around us lifted up.
Jesus told the story of a traveller who came upon a fellow traveller who had been mugged. He helped the fellow physically and financially then established him in a motel to recover telling the motel owner that he was good for any cost beyond what the mugged man incurred, beyond what he had prepaid. This is the model of M.A.D.
The Good Samaritan did this out of compassion rather than religious duty. We should undertake for others in a similar way. The people we encounter have a need to meet the Master and it is as they see Him in our life that He becomes real to them.
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