There were women at the top of that business that were very different than me. There was something about them that was completely foreign to my understanding. They had this glow that was not coming from the The Miracle Set and I was desperate to figure out where it originated. Turns out it was Jesus.
I never met any of those women in person. But I heard them speak and I watched their actions. I knew deep down that the relationship they had with Jesus was very different than mine. And while I had no idea how to get it, I was determined to find out.
As Christians, our lives are meant to stand-out. There should be something about us that makes people wonder. It's how we are given the opportunities to share our faith, what God has done for us, and wants to do for them.
Isaiah 53:2 says, "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him." That has always baffled me. I mean Jesus looked at people and invited them to Come and they got up and went. If there wasn't anything about him to entice them to do so, we have to wonder why they would do it.
While I don't have the absolute answer, my guess is that his encounters with others, that led to noticeable changes and differences, made them curious enough to respond to his call when the offer came. What did they know or what had they heard that motivated them enough to leave what they had always done? What would make a woman, known for her promiscuity, seek him out at a dinner party she wasn't invited to if it wasn't what someone else had experienced and shared with her?
Again, that is purely speculative on my part, but my experience is exactly the same. The women I saw had something I didn't understand. I never heard them talk about Jesus out-right until I started digging deeper into their stories and when I did, it was evident that was the key. And through that process I was sure I needed to figure out how they got what I didn't have.
When Jesus inivted those he did to follow him, he didn't give them a rule book to learn and a test to pass before allowing them to join. He taught along the way through practical experience. Sometimes I wonder if we are so hyper-focused on the eternal consequences for those who don't know Jesus because we understand the time is short that we forget that those we are trying to reach can't see past tomorrow? When any of us are in survival mode, we care more about the next page than the end of the story.
But if we were to share our stories more freely, what is going on, what we are struggling with, what we are doing to see us through, and how God is not only going ahead of us but meeting us every step of the way, I believe we would see people coming to Jesus out of a desire to know this man who continually changes our lives for the better than we would ever see them come because of a fear of hell.
Jesus tells us that others will know us by our love, and our love is never more evident than when we ask questions, share experiences, invest in relationships, and speak the truth. Let's let the truth that we talk about be the love that Jesus has shown us, the mercy and compassion he has given us, and the grace he has covered us with when we decided to commit our lives to him, and let his actions on our behalf speak louder than our words. And maybe his transformation of our lives will give us a glow that draws others straight to his heart.
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