Perfect, Perfected, Perfecting

Matthew 5: 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

The Message of Christ
The message of Christ can be merry or lonely. During the depth of winter and the shortest days of the year, we offer celebration and tinsel and gift giving. The world groans for rescue from loneliness. People duck behind computer screens in bedrooms and living rooms. Time is consumed with fish and farm that will never be smelled, touched, or bite back. Churches are full of services meant for the indoctrinated while extending meaningless invitations to the leprous. When the invited come, few really connect, we are too busy with each other and our secret handshakes and vocabulary. Sterile relationships can never share a cold or a Christ.

Our world is full of shallow and painful relationships. Jesus offers friendship that can be felt. The message of Christ offers acceptance and friendship that is fellowship to all of us. Jesus stepped out from the great beyond of the untouchable and brought God face to face and hand to hand to us.

Catching Christ
Christ can be caught. While Christ is a title indicating the anointed, the messiah, the savior, there is a man/God behind the tile. Jesus is contagious. His attitude is contagious. His thoughts are contagious. His approach to living is contagious. God reached to us to touch us and infect us. He makes us perfect. He makes us like Him.

Perfected
Being perfect is less about being perfect than it is about being God-like and infected and perfected. Love the unlovely and the lovely. Greet with honest appreciation and thanksgiving, each. Each person is placed as a gift of God to us. Receive the gift offered. Make a place. Don’t get hung up so much on “your thang” than you leave out the person sitting next to you. Quit breeding loneliness in others by focusing so much on “your thang”. That is perfection.

Perfecting
Be a perfecting person that changes the world in which you live. Who do you need to touch? Who could use a face to face visit? Who could use a hug outside the foyer of the church building? Who needs a smile that locks and looks eye to eye longer than an uncomfortable quickie at the checkout counter? Who could use a word of encouragement that is thought through and covered with prayer?

Repentance = Mind Change
Okay, I am feeling convicted at this moment. Every time the word’s of God and the example of Christ touch me, I get a little uncomfortable. That is purposeful on His part. He is contagious. To repent means to change your mind. That might be a good vocabulary change for the Christ folk. Who in the heck understands that religious idea of repentance? Most of us struggle to accept a new thought. Most of us struggle to give up an old thought. There, try that one.
Right now, I am thinking of some not so close relationships that should be closer. Over time, I have let them become distant. They are unlovely. They are painful to the touch.

Let’s Pray
Father, how do I get beyond my own resistance to change? Touch me. I am unlovely in so many ways. Maybe, I think I am super lovely. But, there are ways in which I am really unlovely. You keep touching me. You keep coming to me. You never let up. Teach me to do the same with those around me that seem unlovely. Really, they are most lovely. You love them. You offer them friendship and fellowship. Jesus sat with the blatant prostitute and the thief and the sloppy drunk. He even took time for mother-in-laws and government tax agents and politicians and lawyers and whiny busybodies. He called them friends. Break me out of my shell to do the same. That is the real message of Christ. All are human and fragile and flawed and failed. All are worth being loved and changed and infected and perfected.

PrayerMetro puts out thoughts to provoke thinking not preach religion. Think. Meditate. Pause. Pray. Consider. Act.