Some of you think I am going to travel some racial path right now, and you are checking to see if I'm on the "right track" or not. Then depending on what I say, you're going to forever value or discount everything else I say. Well, relax. I'm not going down that track.
I have experienced Jesus in tangible ways around the hood that would make the best Pharisees cast me out of their synagogue for what I have concluded. Jesus restores and indwells bodies with tattoos, male hair buns, and more that totally breaks the church rule of normal. And He restores my soul through them. Get that. He restores my soul through them.
God is even answering my prayers through THEM. They are showing up to work in the hard places. They were not what I was picturing when I was hoping more loving people would show up in this hood. But it blesses me to see SOMEONE is stepping up. They work here. They live here. They are for these people.
Which brings me to this... Jesus came for Publicans and Sinners. He wasn't focused on reaching the Pharisees, or the people who have it 'all together.'
In James it says, "Pure religion and undefiled before God is this: to love the widow and fatherless and keep yourself unspotted from the world." See when you get involved, it gets messy. God knew that. So He told us to get in there and love. And keep ourselves clean. The latter takes on meaning when you enter into the mess, and start to realize how easily lies can enter in if you are busy doing good things, and not watching your thoughts closely.
The reality is though that if I am seeing right in the hood (s) I have been in, that God uses messy, broken people to get the job done. Pharisees have never done anything besides add drama to life. Drama like trying to keep up with the Jones family. And the Pharisees miss out on some of the best things in life cause they get stuck on stuff. They never understood the 7:47 principle which means that "he who has been forgiven little, loves little. He who has been forgiven much, loves much." I pray we all realize that we are desperately lost Sinners in need of a Saviour.
So what does your Jesus "with skin on" look like? Maybe He's all clean, shiny and perfect as a peach.
I'll take the variety that I have come across any time. These get into the lives of the fatherless. They are overwhelmed by the messy, but they are not scared of it because they know Jesus.
And knowing Him is really what life is all about.
