Genuinely changed

The world is hungry for genuinely changed people. Leo Tolstoy said, “Everyone thinks of changing humanity but nobody thinks of changing himself.”

This was a quote that I heard last week and really hit me. We always like to blame people and point the finger.

"Obama's going to ruin the country"

"it's Bush's fault"

"we've inherited this deficit"

You never hear anyone say emphatically "yes, it was my fault", "I messed up". Maybe it is because people perceive that as weak, i don't know? On the contrary, I know it takes a strong person to say he was wrong. I saw my pastor admit his hidden sin when I was in high school. He knew that the majority of the congregation and the city would look at him with disgrace, but he followed God's guidance and confessed his sin and now helps people with the same struggles. God has a plan that is better than we could ever imagine, even when it doesn't look that way.

I also have a friend who picked up from everything he has known for almost the past two decades and moved his family half way across the nation. He struggles sometimes with the decision that He feels God wanted him to make. This all reminds me of the Israelites in the desert. They were disgusted making bricks day after day. God delivered them and they had to wander in the desert, but they often wanted to go back. God had promised them to promise land and they knew that but often forgot it.

I know this rings true in my life for the times sin creeps in. I can feel so close to God and then in a lull I forget and think that sin looks better for the moment. This is the plague of life.

We forget...

We forget that God is life ...

We forget that God has our best in mind...

In the same way I feel this quote is true. We idolize people who can inspire and mobilize the masses. We don't idolize people who start an after school program or mentor one kid who doesn't have a father. God has a way of flipping the world's priorities on their head. He has different ideas for the words like success, happiness, rich, poor, truth, and lies. I feel that we Christians even miss these ideas many times. We forget that glory is not what really matters and that won't satisfy us.

We need to make a shift to doing the small things and inspiring people we come in contact with to do the same. If each Christian committed to truly serving the one block they live on then how much closer would we be to changing the world? If we all were truly neighbors to our neighborhoods what would happen?

We also need to make a conscious effort as Christians to look and live different than the world. We need to show the world that We have been truly an radically changed by the grace of God. So many times we look and act just like the people that would say they don't know Christ. We don't look and act like we have been genuinely changed. No wonder people are leaving the christian faith, no wonder faith systems like Islam are growing exponentially, because people live a radically different life. They live like they have something to believe in. Ask yourself first...

Do you really believe what you say you believe?

Does your life reflect that belief?

Are you truly changed?

Really?