Representation

I have been thinking a lot lately about how I represent Christ and I have come up with a few ideas. Now I know I have addressed this several times about how we need to represent but I want to make it somewhat clear as to how I have done so or lack thereof in some cases. I spend some days wondering if the way I lived as a "Christian" in front of my friends will be what turns them off from God for the rest of their life. I have been in the situations where I had the chance to keep my mouth shut when I could say something demeaning about someone or make an unnecessary joke and I will tell you that more often than not I have been unable to walk away or stay silent. It is like I am desensitized to the whole thing and it is totally harmless but in reality it is every reflection of who I am and who I claim to be in Christ. My parents raised me right but I have failed them in many areas and been a bad representation of them and for that I can never repay them. When I struggled with pornography it was not an easy to just walk away and I will admit that there are times when I am at battle with satan trying to push me back into it and I have to stand strong. We make mistakes but we cannot continue to make the same ones if we want to earn the respect of people. Being a good person and saying the right things is not enough to get anyone anywhere. The people who are "good" are the people who can honestly say they practice what they preach. Giving in is so much easier because it is within your grasp, something tangible that results of making a poor decision and sinning. Instant gratification of your desires (whatever they may be) is not enough to make up for the eternity that you will miss out on in the end and nobody can dispute that. I take full responsibility for the choices I have made and I am fortunate in some areas that while there are scars, God will bring me joy when I start over and those scars do not surface easily. I know satan is waiting to use them but having talked to people about certain things, I feel like I have a good sense of what God wants for me and he wants me to utilize this grace (if you will) and use it to make things right. He wants to make me new again in certain areas but he cannot do that if I continue to make the same mistake over and over. I wish I could say that I have lived a "good" life and I can say that I try but more often than not, I make the mistake and I do not want to. I spend so much time thinking about how good things can be and what I am capable of and I do not know what is lacking. It might be prayer, it might be reading, it might be something inside me, or it might just be me missing someone who can really push me to be better. I know that God has something special for me over the next few years and I am searching hard to find it. I want what God desires, I just have to figure out what I am doing.

In Galatians we see that Paul is preaching and he talks about how he was accepted after his conversion. He talks about how her persecuted the Jews and he was zealous for the traditions of his fathers. This guy was having Jews put to death for believing in the Son of God but God had bigger plans for him. Just imagine the stage this guy had for representing Christ. First off, all of his old friends must have thought he was crazy because there is no way that this guy could fervently believe the very stuff he had said was a lie. Next, the Jews probably thought it was an inside job so he could figure out who the leaders were and take them down without any problems, and lastly, Paul probably had people thinking that he was going to revert back to his old ways because of how he had lived up to that point and it just was not feasible for him to accept something beyond what he had always known. Let me just say that if Paul had gone back to his previous way after having experienced the things he had, two outcomes may have resulted. One, it would have increased support against the Jewish movement because the whole blinding light and voice would have been considered a fluke and blasphemy about God. Secondly, some of the Jews would have just walked away because he could not be real if he was unable to complete such a simple task as changing a man of that status. Instead, Paul showed everyone the awesome power of God and even said that these people knew what he had done in the past and they still were willing to listen to him. This is key because Paul would never have been able to do any of the stuff he went on to do because people would not have respected him. He apologized and changed his actions because he knew that his past did not reflect Christ and he wanted to change the reflection in the mirror from Saul to Christ (think about it).

Overall, we are the only ones who can choose how we represent what we believe. The Church at Chapel Hill is going through a sermon series titled, "If not us, Who? If not now, When?" and I think this is great not only when it comes to reaching out to people but also for people to follow the way of Christ. Our generation of Christians is so messed up in our thinking of what is acceptable for Christians and I will tell you that our parents did not pass that along to us. If our parents did, then they forgot something in the handbook of raising your children to live lives of Christ. I understand that not all kids had that background of being raised in a Christian home and that is fine, but then they cannot be seeing partying , pre-marital pregnancy, cursing, gambling, etc... from the group that was raised in Christian homes. Otherwise they have a distorted view of the Christian church, they say "I thought it was supposed to be this way, but everyone else says it is fine so I guess it really is no big deal, I just have to follow Christ now." It is a big deal and we need our teens to make sure they are standing up and speaking out. Those of us who are in college and know what it is like, we need to speak up whether we added to the problem or not. Our voice AND action reflects what our true character and hopefully it is that of Christ.

I hope you are all doing well, I will continue to pray for those who have asked for prayer and I hope to hear from some of you soon.

God Bless,

Joseph Robinson