Having recently begun reading Matthew, I've come to notice something that seems key to living the Christian life, and that is simply us living. It may sound simple, but knowing our humanity it can become complicated. Let me explain:
In Matthew 8:1-4 (MSG) Jesus is met by a leper, who asks Jesus if he can be healed and Jesus does this. But what is key is that Jesus says do not go and speak about this all over the town, but to go quietly to the priest and present himself and give thankful expression to God. It was his cleansed and grateful life that would be a demonstration of his healing not his words. This resonated with me, as there are times when our words can be so empty and meaningless, because our lives don't demonstrate what we're saying.
You see there are so many people out there, who say they represent Jesus, and Jesus is their number one, but their lives beg to differ. I was one, who used to say 'Yep, Jesus is my Lord and Saviour, yeah He's number one in my life' but the words didn't match the reality, I just carried on living in a careless way, didn't read the bible, didn't seek to make my life any better. And I'm not saying that those who fully accept Jesus are without sin, but the real difference comes when you see those who are actively striving to become Christ-like in their everyday activities and those who say they accept Christ but are still doing the same thing as those who haven't. It is our actions that are a louder demonstration of our faith rather than our words. This idea matches up with the fact that we only have one mouth, there are times when we need to keep it shut.
Having realised this fact after reading Matthew 8, I then noticed that the way we live had been mentioned previously in Matthew. We are told to live out our God-created identity, live generously and graciously towards others, the way God lives towards us - Matthew 5:48 (MSG). It is all about the action and not the words, the generosity and the grace that we demonstrate will be an example of Jesus living within us, and that's when people will notice the difference. It's almost like seperating the wheat from the chaff. The chaff being those with all the talk but no grounding behind it and the wheat being those who might not say a lot but live out their God created identity. The road isn't always going to be easy, but Jesus says you're blessed when you're persecuted for his sake, so what will you be, the wheat or the chaff?
All my love
Jade Chanel x
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