The Good Shepherd, carrying His own.

Discussion/Devotional Thought of the Day:
⁹  Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. ¹⁰  Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. ¹¹  Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, ¹²  cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. ¹³  Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality. ¹⁴  Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. ¹⁵  Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. ¹⁶  Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody. ¹⁷  Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone.
Romans 12:9-17 (MSG)

Christ raised up the image of Adam. You are not just clay; you extend beyond all cosmic dimensions to the very Heart of God. It is not the one who is scourged who is degraded, but the one who scourges; not the one spat upon, but the one who spits; not the one put to scorn, but he who puts to scorn; it is not pride that raises man up, but humility; not self-glorification that makes him great, but that union with God of which he is capable.

Union with God, what a concept laid out for us in this quote in blue.  Union with God. 

I hear in the background two voices, one saying we can’t be buddy buddy with God, the other where Jesus tells us that we are not his servants, but his friends.   One that cries out for reverent submission, one which sees God the Father running faster than anyone else to welcome us home.

I struggle with this because I have seen the extreme where Jesus being our friend mutates to the idea that He is a good ole boy who understands our sinful nature and simply turns a blind eye to it.  I have seen the other extreme as well, where we are so terrified of being caught in sin that our reaction is to try to run and hide from Him, rather than run to Him.

The balance isn’t even on the radar of the extremes, for the balance is found as God draws us in and in His cultivation of our relationship with Him.

Even as we do this, we need, we must realize when we talk of God loving us this way, we are talking about a larger group than you and I.  We are talking about all the people that Christ died for, really we are talking about all people.

You aren’t just a bunch of dirt, and neither am I.  Our value is that our lives don’t just matter to God – they are previous, we are precious – priceless in His evaluation.  So are those we discount, those we struggle with, those we fear.  Their lives are just as precious, they are people that God has in His heart.

This is why Paul calls us to love people, to recognize God’s Spirit in them, and to see God’s desire that all would be His family.  Just as we are. To realize our enemies have the same God who cares for them, the God who doesn’t dismiss or write them off, or consider them lower that dirt. He discovers the beauty in each of us, or rather, He created us with that beauty, and reveals it more and more as we know HIs love.

This no “them” for a Christian, no dividing line, even that label enemy cannot divide people from us, for it didn’t divide us from Jesus.  He draws us into himself anyway, loving us, cherishing us, healing our souls, and helping us to see others whose souls He would heal as well.

Lord have mercy on us all… AMEN!

Ratzinger, Joseph. Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year. Ed. Irene Grassl. Trans. Mary Frances McCarthy and Lothar Krauth. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992. Print.