Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Psalms 27-29
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Matthew 11:16-19
Jesus: What is this generation like? You are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out, “When we played the flute, you did not dance; and when we sang a dirge, you did not mourn.” What I mean is this: When John came, he dressed in the clothes of a prophet, and he did not eat and drink like others but lived on honey and wild locusts. And people wondered if he was crazy, if he had been possessed by a demon. Then the Son of Man appeared—He didn’t fast, as John had, but ate with sinners and drank wine. And the people said, “This man is a glutton! He’s a drunk! And He hangs around with tax collectors and sinners, to boot.” Well, Wisdom will be vindicated by her actions—not by your opinions.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
What do you look for in a Christian, a real follower of Christ? Many today look for an always somber, downcast demeanor, someone who looks like they have a perpetual case of indigestion or who lost their kitten and can’t find it. Some think Christians must always be frowning and wearing this mask of sorrow and grief because of the ills and evils present in the world today. Perhaps that’s the picture Jesus painted of John in the wilderness. His was not an easy life wearing camel skins and eating locust and the honey he could find in the trees and bushes in the wild.
But Jesus came and He wasn’t like John. He didn’t stay in the wilderness eating locust and wearing the skins of animals He killed in the brush to survive. He didn’t walk around with a sour disposition preaching doom and gloom. He didn’t keep His head bowed and His eyes on the ground groveling in false humility. Jesus loved people and embraced life everywhere He went. If He didn’t, I don’t think He would have gathered crowds of thousands around Him when He spoke. Think about the charasmatic speakers you see today. There are few that can surround themselves with thousands of listeners. And today they have the advantages of multimedia advertising to help draw their crowds. Jesus had word of mouth to let people know He was coming, yet scripture records events in which He spoke to multitudes…often.
So what should Christians look like and act like? Jesus had fun. He ate with prostitutes, tax collectors, who everyone considered thieves, sinners. He conversed with outsiders, the most poverty stricken who sometimes did unscrupulous things to survive. He ate with the wealthy who sometimes did unscrupulous things to gain and maintain their wealth. How could He associate with such people if He were the Son of God? In those settings, too, He had a crowd around Him. He laughed, He smiled, He told stories, He listened to other people’s stories. He enjoyed life.
The religious leaders of the day, thought Jesus should fit their mold. They thought He should look and act a certain way. They thought He should fit into their picture of what a righteous person looks like. The problem with their thought process, though, they didn’t know what righteousness was. They assumed they were righteous because they kept the rules. But we cannot be righteous just by keeping rules. Remember what Paul says? “We have all sinned. All our attempts to reach out to God have failed.” We cannot become righteous through our actions. It’s not possible.
But God made it possible for us to wear His righteousness. We can wear His likeness and when we do, we won’t look like the crowd. We won’t act like the crowd. We won’t worry about what others say about our actions, either. We will do what Christ would do because He will be directing our actions. We will act like He acts and look like He looks because we will be more interested in pleasing Him than pleasing others. We will want to go where He would go and say what He would say. We will be His emissaries and represent Him in all we do.
So what should Christians look like and act like? Sometimes we will look and act like John the Baptist. Sometimes it’s necessary to be the prophet with the message of repentance. When Christ asks us to take on that role, it isn’t always pleasant and our countenance will probably reflect the difficulty of confronting others with the truth of the gospel. We will sorrow for those who refuse to listen and continue on their selfish path to ultimate destruction and eternal punishment.
But most often, we will be like Jesus was as He drew crowds around Him. Welcoming the children. Singing. Laughing. Telling stories of God’s grace and goodness. Helping others understand the good news of God’s salvation and His empowerment in our life, now, in this place, in the middle of all the evil that surrounds us. Our lives as Christians today are certainly no more difficult than that of the early followers of Jesus. In fact, we probably have life too easy. Maybe a little persecution would help us understand just how much we need to rely on Him instead of ourselves.
The leaders in His day couldn’t understand how Jesus fit it to their religious formula. Because He didn’t. He didn’t come to uphold or create a religion but to create relationships. That’s what God wants from us. So He was just Jesus, the Son of Man, the Son of God. What should we look and act like as His followers? Him, that’s all.
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