"Plenty of highly charismatic leaders have bombed out and failed because they lacked character, which trumps charisma every time. You don’t have to have charisma to be a leader. You do have to have character, credibility, because leadership is influence and if you don’t have credibility nobody is going to follow you...
Leaders come in all shapes, sizes, and temperaments. There is no one particular leadership personality. In fact, there are many. You don’t have to be outgoing to be a leader. God wants to use your personality. Paul was a choleric. Peter was a sanguine. Moses was a melancholic. Abraham was a phlegmatic. They are as different as night and day. God used them all." - Pastor Rick Warren
I saw a picture a while back of an ordinary house cat looking in a mirror. The reflection the cat saw was that of a lion. This is what Jesus is talking to me about this morning. We were made in His image and when we look at each other and ourselves that is what we should see, a reflection of Christ. But, in our brokenness if we were to stand before a mirror and see Jesus standing there we would immediately begin running down the list in our minds of all the reasons we are not like Him.
This morning He brought a couple verses to mind.
Matthew 10:22
22 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.
John 14:6
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Imagine yourself standing in front of a full length mirror and the reflection of Jesus staring back at you. He is the Truth. We begin measuring and with the Truth staring us in the face we hate our shortcomings. Is this why the unbeliever hates Christians? Because they see us standing in front of that mirror, a reflection of Jesus, while the enemy is screaming out our shortcomings. Like Gandhi says, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” I believe many people fall away from following God because they stand in front of this mirror and it's just too big. Like the house cat, we start a list, I'm small, I have no mane, I don't know how to roar, I can't control my anger, I am judgmental, I am an addict and so on and so on.
I believe God knows this is just too big for us, so what He does is He places people in our lives with the same shortcomings. Hate is a strong word, but I think I have to use it here. What we hate in those around us warrants a look into a mirror. For instance, if some one we know is always judging others in our eyes and we hate that truth about them, is it because we judge? Is it that true reflection of ourselves that we hate? If we spot it, we probably got it.
Recently God has shown me a person He placed in my life who is a lot like me. When I stand in front of this person like I am looking in a mirror, I see the same bruises, though they may be shaped a little different. I see the same scars, though they may be located a little to the left or to the right. I see the same demons stuck to them that are attached to me. The things I hate, the things that make me so angry I want to spit, are the things I don't like in myself. You have to see it, be it, feel it and then heal it. The Truth will set us free only after we take these steps.
God's timing is amazing. In this image, God allowed me to see this person as a child. He showed me a picture of me as a child standing in front of this person as a child, with the same sad face. There were differences, but it was the sameness that God lit up. He wanted me to see me.
Last night, or should I say, early this morning, God allowed me to represent this person in a courtroom where the enemy was the accuser and Jesus was the defender. This person was sitting with their back to the enemy in complete denial that he was even present. This person was so stuck in anger, they couldn't see the truth, so stuck in the accusations and busy defending them self that they wouldn't allow Jesus to step in. When I forced this person to turn around and see the enemy, they immediately scrambled to get behind me, but I picked them up and set them in Jesus' lap. Then I faced the enemy. As angry as I have been with this person, as hurt as I have been, I told the enemy that there was no way he was going to get them. I felt authority and righteous anger rise up in me like never before. I hurled down the accuser in Jesus name. That's when Jesus whispered, "It is those broken pieces that you have in common that I am sending you out to defend against the enemy in my name." When we step up to battle we are opening the alabaster box and pouring the perfume over His feet. When we don't face the enemy and we allow Him to continue hurling accusations at us, we are refusing to wash the feet of Jesus. We are His hands and feet. We must wash each other's feet, because we are to be a reflection of Him and we are to wash an other's feet, because they are a reflection of Him. We are to protect each other through intercessory prayer, because we are all a part of Him.
“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”
― Brennan Manning
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