LIVING THE GOOD LIFE

How do Christian persons live in their world as living witnesses, the kind of witnesses God can use to draw people to Christ?  We live in a word oriented world but our witness for Christ must go deeper than our words.  Our lives speak far more authoritatively than our words.  Influence might just be the best way God touches the world.  Think about this for a moment.

In his book, Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller describes his thoughts about Jazz music.  He writes,

   “I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.
   After that I liked jazz music.
   Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.

"Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself."  What if we took this as a lifestyle mandate and lived the Christlike life in such away that people might come to love Christ because of the way they watch us love Christ. 

This raises the questions as to what people see when they watch us.  Do we make God look good or do we make God look angry and judgmental, even vindictive?  Do we leave the impression with the watchers that the Gospel really is good news or do we leave them with the impression that God is simply out for His pound of flesh? 

Missionary E. Stanley Jones once said that people are saying to Christians (he was speaking specifically of Christians in India), "If you will come to us in the spirit of your master we will not be able to resist you."  I don't know about the "we will not be able to resist you," part but with all my heart I believe our lives must reflect the life and spirit of Jesus or we will simply be "a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal" (I Corinthians 13:1).

And, the world already has enough resounding gongs and clanging cymbals.