About the little things too

I took a study on Stephen last night (Acts 6:8-7:60).

The guy was amazing. He loved God so much that he obeyed His commands to love our neighbours and by doing so spreading the gospel to those who hated it (which meant he forfeited his mortal life by trying to save their souls - that IS love). The thing that struck me about Stephen is that he highlights the fact that if we love God we are to follow the teachings of Christ. This means not only working on our own progressive sanctification, but also loving people enough to try and point them towards Jesus. Stephen could be somewhat blunt in his approach as the setting he was in allowed for it (a trial). Its not often we will be able to have such direct approaches, but we need to try to always be a positive piece in someone's journey hopefully toward salvation in Jesus.

It’s tough though. It is by no means cool to be a Christian in New Zealand. In one way or another we will have people in places of authority against us, people will argue with us, we will be social outcasts, and people testify falsely about what our relationship with God means (whether knowingly or not).

The thing that stuns me, is that Jesus gave up His rightful place as King of glory and came to earth where He experienced people in power attacking Him (Matt 26:57), Arguments (Mark 8:11), Social disapproval (Matt 27:11-31), False testimony (Mark 14:56), and Physical pain (Matt 27:11-31) just to name a few things. We don’t serve a distant God who can't relate to us. God has experienced the things we go through first hand. Being God, he knows what it is like when we go through things anyway, but He came to experience it in Human form so that we can understand that He understands.

Because of Jesus we have the ultimate example in all things. God is not only massive beyond all comprehension, but, through Jesus he has experienced our trials and Tribulations First-Hand – He is not only concerned about the huge stuff (eg. Man’s reconciliation with Him), He is also concerned with our day to day things of relative insignificance (eg. Social disapproval). I find this very comforting.