Are you ready for an insight to change your life? This is the life you are living. Right now, what you are doing and where you are living is it. Removed of our dreams and fantasies about what sort of life we’d really like, the one we’re in now is it. I don’t say this to depress you – I say it to help you.
Once we get past a fantasy idea of “what our lives should be”, we can properly focus on what they are. Once we know what they are, we can begin to change what we don’t like. This isn’t some pop psychology mumbo-jumbo, we’ve got to take an honest look at ourselves. Honesty with oneself is probably the greatest benefit to anyone. It may take time, but we’ve got to get through the lies we tell ourselves.
For me as a Christian, life is about something that was done and how I react to it – I believe Jesus Christ came to this world and died on the cross to atone for sins I committed – things I did wrong. I don’t have much issue with the fact that I did things wrong because everyone does, but I sure wasn’t proud of what I did. For a long time I was proud and looked down on others, and invited few into what I considered my own private world. What I really wanted was good relationships with other people – honesty and truth, people who cared about me and who I cared about in return. I can say without a doubt that the Nazarene church gave that to me.
But the reason why is more complex: you see a community like that exists because each and every person there has had a similar experience: they knew who they were before they knew Jesus, and they know who they are now. At some point, each person had that moment of clarity in which they said “This is the way things are – and I want to change them.”
We know as Christians that we can’t change every person in the world – there will be liars, cheats and thieves. But we can make a place available where we are not those things. Better still, we make room and invite those very liars, cheats and thieves and tell them that Jesus cares for them as much as he does for us. That’s amazing – and it’s called grace.
Too many people complain about the world yet do nothing about it. Here in our little corner of town, we do the best we can with what we have. We try to love all the people who come in, and lately we’ve had visitors, and we love and appreciate them. This is our chance to change the world – by helping those around us to find a loving home of support and actual life change. It’s funny isn’t it, how people think you have to go half way around the world in order to do something really effective, or to make the world a better place. How many people have we been influenced and changed by who might not have ever left this town? Or who have never been to exotic foreign places? The point is that we are most changed by those we are closest to – our friends, our parents, our family.
We have decided to hold the quietest revolution in the world here: if you come in, and you are honest, we will try our best to love you as Jesus loves you. We don’t have all the money in the world, but money is often easier to come by than love. This world can be a cold and hard place for those facing it alone, but I feel if you give us a chance and you keep showing up, you’ll find a home with us. But as warm and wonderful as that sounds, there’s a key: you have to come. You have to show up, because people don’t love in a vacuum. People can’t get to know you on your couch. Our world is turning so inward – the social places of the past are being abandoned. Church recognizes that you need one another – as God intended. You may want to come, and you may intend to come, but things will come against you to stop you. Ultimately each of us must ask if we want to embrace the obstacles of the world for a fairy tale day that may never come, or if we want to embrace love – as difficult and time consuming and wonderful as it is.
- J. Cole Weston is Lead Pastor at Okmulgee First Church of the Nazarene at 711 N. Okmulgee. You can contact him via email at okmulgeenazarene@gmail.com or 918-213-0359. Services are held Sunday at 10:30, with Sunday School at 9:30, with our bible study on Romans concluding this week at 6 pm.
