Monday, October 7, 2013
360 - There Goes a Christian
Spirituality Column #360
October 8, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville
October 8, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville
There Goes a Christian
By Bob Walters
"If
we Christians truly lived in Christ and actually did what we are told we
can do, our lives would have such a strong effect on the
world, that as we walked down the streets all the by-standers would
point and say, wow; there goes a Christian." – Gert Behanna
I’ve never
met my friend Larry face to face, but he is a faithful brother in Christ who for
the past six years or so has been regularly emailing me from Tennessee with
encouraging notes and salient thoughts about this weekly newspaper column. Early on, somebody from here sent him the In Spirit column from Current in Carmel, Larry sent me a supportive
email, I responded … and we’ve been electronic pen pals ever since.
So thanks
to him for the above quote, which he sent last week responding to “Not That
Many Atheists,” one of the “Classic” In
Spirit columns republished each Friday at www.commonchristianity.blogspot.com.
Gert
Behanna was a wealthy, wild-living, alcoholic American woman writer who found
Christ and sobriety at age 53 in the mid-1950s.
Before dying in 1969, Gert became something of a legend as a speaker for
Alcoholics Anonymous. Her God Is Not Dead! (link to text here) speech is still
available on audio CD at Amazon.
Behanna’s
point testifies to the unimaginable light and attractiveness of faithful,
loving Christian witness. One might
note, however, that it also harkens a less-flattering flip-side truth: it’s not
that Christians should walk down the
street wanting to be noticed. The sad fact is too many Christians do walk down the street wanting to be
noticed. And that’s why, too often,
Christians are noticed for all the wrong reasons. Pride, judgment, and arrogance do not Godly
witness make.
A
faithful life in Christ is humble in self but confident in God. The Gospels teach us to be wary of the
hypocrites praying pridefully on the street corners (Matthew 6:5), and that all
who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be
exalted (Luke 18:9-14, parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector).
This,
of course, seems completely backward in our “Me, me, always me!” culture. But Christ’s divine servant humility was also
completely backward not only in biblical culture but also in virtually every
other culture in history. Sinful mankind
has always tried to ride pride, power and wealth to false, worldly salvation.
Christians
playing to the worldly standards of the by-standers will plow fallow fields. Christians focused on loving others bring
light to the world and glory to God.
We
mustn’t ask if the world notices us; we must ask if the world notices God.
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