Encouragement

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Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesday August 24, 2005

Most people live in fear, fear of another Great Depression, of runaway inflation, even of the loss of standing among superiors or peers. One way to overcome such fears is very simple and for the most part overlooked by the world at large. Even the church overlooks the biblical truth that is designed to set us free from such as these and others.

The consummate social worker of another era, Dorothy Sayers once said:

"God underwent three great humiliations in His efforts to rescue the human race.

• The humiliation of the Incarnation, in which He accepted the confines of a physical body.

• The humiliation of the Cross where He was publicly executed.

• The humiliation of the Church."

Do not let the last one throw you. When we who are in the church through faith in Christ act like idiots, such actions bring further humiliation to the name of Christ. Dorothy pointed out that Jesus Christ entrusted His reputation to ordinary people, men and women just like you and me.

Humans who try to help fellow humans will fare better in our efforts if we can learn from Jesus how to respond to the failures of our brothers and sisters.

I know more than one person who has blown it big time and thus experienced the ostracism of Christians who were once their dearest friends. Often this Amish type of 'shunning' is unstated, sometimes stated vehemently, yet either way it brings pain. The underlying reason for this pushing away is a lack of understanding of the great heart of Jesus and how He goes after the ones who are currently humiliating Him. Perhaps the grandest form of humiliation is committed by the 'touch all of the bases' man/woman who vociferously rant about the 'open sin' of a brother or sister, and then fights with the spouse and children all the way home from church!! Of course there are other often tragic sins, yet we keep our mouth shut and wish the offending sinner would just go away.

If you have felt the emotions mentioned above, you are normal. That is what is wrong with most of us, we are normal.

God did not save you through faith in Jesus Christ, so that you could be normal!! He saved you in order to equip you to be super normal!

It is my long studied opinion that the sins of the big time brothers and sisters, when made public, are truly a source of humiliation for Christ. It is also my opinion reached after many years of trying to help knocked down Christians that the manner of treating the knocked down ones by the ‘good’ folks at the church brings a larger tear to the eye of the Man of Sorrows.

I base the above observations on the way Jesus treated Peter after the enormous failure by Peter in Pilate's Judgment Hall. You recall the crowing rooster. After His resurrection, Jesus told the disciples to include Peter in the good news. Mark 16:7, "But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you."

The point is not whether or not we humiliate Jesus, it is just a matter of how.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2005 Use with credit.

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