How
do you view people? Many base their view on physical appearance or social standing
or financial standing or political affiliation or on spiritual beliefs.
How
did Jesus view people?
John
3:16 tells us that God loved the world. World here is referring to the people,
the people of the world.
So,
Jesus loves us. He loves all humanity. He loves us regardless of our physical
appearance or our social standing or our financial standing or our political
affiliation or our spiritual beliefs. Jesus does not always agree with our beliefs
or our life style but He loves us and wants a relationship with us.
Paul
says in 2 Corinthians 5:16, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one according
to the flesh.”
Paul
is saying that as followers of Jesus we don’t look at others from a human-based
or worldly viewpoint. We look at them from a Jesus point of view.
In
Luke 19:10 Jesus says that the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.
In
Matthew 9:13 Jesus says to the Jewish religious leaders that they need to learn
what this means, “‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the
righteous, but sinners.”
Jesus
loves us and that is why He goes out to seek and save the lost and to call
sinners into a relationship with Him.
Raise
the Roof and Remove the Walls is loving the lost and the unrighteous and
being one who Jesus uses to go and share His love and grace with others.
What
do these lost and unrighteous people look like and how did Jesus reach out to
them?
In
John 4 Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman who had been married five times and
was living with a man she was not married to. She was an outcast from her own
community. Jesus does not condemn her but shares truth in love with her and
leads her to faith in Him as the Savior.
Jesus
lovingly shares truth with us to lead us into a relationship with Him as our
Savior.
Raise
the Roof and Remove the Walls is seeing people as Jesus did and lovingly
sharing truth with them to enable them to know Jesus as their Savior.
In
Matthew 8:2 a leper comes to Jesus and asks Him to heal him if He is willing.
In Matthew 8:3 Jesus says that He is willing and He touches the leper and heals
him.
Jesus
does not stand off from the lost and unrighteous but He enters into their lives
and touches them.
Raise
the Roof and Remove the Walls is us being the hands and feet and voice and
heart of Jesus and entering into the lives of others and touching them with
Jesus’ love.
In
John 9 Jesus encounters a blind man, the man blind from birth. The disciples
wanted to discuss who had sinned that caused this man to be blind. Jesus does
not enter their discussion; He just heals the man.
We
all have been born with a bent toward sin or a nature that desires our will, not
God’s will. Jesus shows He can and will change things that we’re born with.
Jesus says in John 9:5 that He is the light of the world. He brought physical
light into the blind man’s eyes. He brings the light of the truth of the gospel
to our spiritual eyes.
Rise
the Roof an Remove the Walls is allowing Jesus to bring the truth of the
gospel into our lives and sharing that truth into other’s lives.
Jesus
sees the lost and unrighteous as hurting, wounded, broken, and messy. We want
to stay away from people like that, but Jesus wants to bring relief for the
hurting; healing for the wounded; fixing for the broken; cleaning for the
messy.
We
need to be like Paul by not regarding anyone from a human-based viewpoint but
seeing them from a Jesus viewpoint. We need to love them just as Jesus does and
enter into life with them so we can show them the love and grace of God.
Jesus
was different from His culture and viewed and treated people differently than
His culture did. We need to be different like that, so that others can see
Jesus in us.
With
a Jesus Point of View Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,
Joe
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