Who Are You?

Luke 6:43-45                                                      Who Are You?

“You don’t get wormy apples off a healthy tree, nor good apples off a diseased tree.  The health of the apple tells the health of the tree.  You must begin with your own life-giving lives.  It’s who you are, not what you say and do, that counts.  Your true being brims over into true words and deed” (MSG).

But I thought what I say and do are “who I am.”  No, not quite, they can represent who we are, but who we are includes all the other things in our lives that flow out of our words and our acts.  Do our acts match our words, or do we hedge a little bit on our doing?  Those who are critical of Christians hit that exact point.  They expect our acts to exactly match what we say, and when our acts and words don’t match up, they use those situations as proof that we follow false religion.  That can be a compelling argument, so the pressure is on us to make our acts, all of our acts, match our words.  And that is why we must focus on the forgiveness of Jesus.  He is the central point of Christianity, and it is His life, death, and resurrection that is ultimately important.  We need to let it be known that we are certainly not perfect, but that Jesus, by His sacrifice, has taken the punishment for all of our sins, and has wiped them out—erased them as if they had never happened.

It is essential that we endeavor to follow the principles presented by Jesus.  ‘Do unto others as we would have them do to us.”  Put others needs before our own.  In short, live so that the love of Jesus is as noticeable in our actions as it is in our words.  It is more important to show the love of Jesus than it is to obey the Ten Commandments.  When Jesus was asked which is the greatest commandment, He answered: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it.  ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (NIV).  The closer we get to these two commandments the closer we are to having our lives brim over with “true words and deeds.”  I’m not sure how to define myself right now, but my goal is to have my life brim over with “true words and deeds.”