Simply Amazing

I don’t remember exactly what the context was in terms of the issues being discussed, but I do remember saying something like “If you took Jesus semi-seriously . . .” One person in the class was highly offended at my choice of words – “semi-seriously.” I actually wasn’t advocating a “semi-serious” approach to Jesus, but rather that even a “semi-serious” approach to Jesus would lead us to avoid all sorts of human failures. I said that in the spirit of “no telling what would happen if we took Him seriously!”

It really is simply amazing how basic that can be. When asked, perhaps not with the greatest of motives, about life issues, Jesus replied with a simply amazing answer: “Love God and love your neighbor.” When you get those two things worked out, everything else seems to fall into place. Such an approach to life requires some degree of maturity, of course, but it surely ought to be our goal in life revolves around those two principles.

On the other end of the “simply amazing” spectrum, I continue to be astounded by how easy it is to forget what loving God and loving neighbor must mean. Can I, as a believer who claims to love God on the one hand, treat a fellow believer unkindly on the other hand because I disagree over something that is temporal at best?” Or even if the disagreement is over a “matter of faith,” does that somehow trump what Jesus had to say about loving God and loving neighbor?

Can I “love my neighbor” – who at the moment happens to be a fellow believer with whom I disagree about which missionary to support – and treat her rudely over that disagreement? While loving my neighbor doesn’t suggest I have to be best friends with every person I know, it surely means that I intentionally treat my neighbor with kindness – one of the facets of the fruit of the Spirit, at least in Paul’s mind. Honestly, even if I am “right” (and we all tend to think we are) about who would be the better missionary, is that worth being un-Christlike to the person who sees it differently?

Even when the disagreement is over some matter of faith – shouldn’t I take Jesus “seriously” enough to treat my neighbor as a person “I love” instead of rudely dismissing him as “wrong.” It just seems that saying that I love God has implications about every aspect of my life, including learning to be kind to those with whom I disagree, to those whose approach to life is irritating to me, and even to those who haven’t yet found the joy of loving God.

For longer than I can believe, I’ve had the privilege of serving on the board of Woodland Christian Camp in Temple, Georgia. That has always been a blessing for a number of reasons, but among those reasons would be that I was blessed to serve alongside of John Wade, long-time professor at what was then Atlanta Christian College.

I can still remember the rather lengthy board discussion we had about the last piece of property Woodland purchased. We needed the property – for expansion and protection of the camp site – and the owner apparently knew that. He drove a hard bargain and wanted more than the property was worth. Professor Wade, who carefully managed his own resources and those of organizations he served, thought we should not buy the property. “It isn’t worth what he is asking” was a constant refrain he brought to that discussion.

When we finally voted on the matter, we voted nearly unanimously (is that an oxymoron?), there was one dissenting vote. It was Professor Wade’s.

Like most non-profits, we didn’t have the money in the bank to pay for the purchase and quickly developed a capital campaign to fund it. The first contributor to that campaign was Professor Wade, who made a generous gift to help pay for property he thought we paid too much for! And, I might add, not a single board member left that meeting years ago thinking that Professor Wade was anything buy Christ-like. Somehow he managed to seriously disagree with his neighbors in that room that night, but we all thought he loved us.

That’s the kind of “simply amazing” the world of outsiders around us needs to see more of. Such an approach can never happen – until we do the “simply amazing” thing of taking Jesus seriously!