What is a Christian's job ... really?

John Fischer started this conversation with a blog entry on fear, faith, and the Christian's job. To read the originals, go to his website, scroll down to the May 7th entry and read it ... then go to the May 8th entry for a follow-up.

The Fischtank entry was forwarded to me by my wife, who'd received it from a friend of hers. It was refreshing and a relief to read it, so I sent a response to the friend ...

So often, we hear slogans like, "What would Jesus do?" and "Do what Jesus did" and we lose sight of "What did Jesus tell us to do?"

When He asked Peter, "do you love Me?" and Peter said "You know that I do", He didn't turn around and say, "then go find the lousy sods who did this to Me and make them pay for it!'; He said, "feed My sheep ... feed My sheep ... feed My lambs".

Preach the Gospel. Heal the sick. Bind the brokenhearted. Not wave placards and scream at people who do things that offend God, but live the faith and show the world that, by its own merits, it's far and away better than anything else.

We have to be realistic and know there's an enemy there and know that one of his tactics is to keep us occupied with protests against things that offend God. That's why God made it so easy for us: preach the Gospel. He knows there's never any shortage of things that offend Him, but the darkness cannot overpower His Light, so if we're shining that Light properly, eventually, people will come.

David says, "do I not hate them that hate Thee?" (Ps. 139), but God has a response. "Bless those that curse thee, pray for them that despitefully use thee ..." and "vengeance is Mine". So no matter what people say about God or Christ or those who believe, keep on loving, and leave the judgment to God.

There's a not-so-old saying I guarantee you won't find in Scripture: "when you're up to your a** in alligators, it is difficult to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp." Satan keeps pushing alligators at us to try to take our focus off God. But once we get the swamp drained, the alligators die of exposure!

Hmm: I may have my next sermon here.