Are you Christ?

I have been blessed to be a part of an encouraging and convicting biblestudy the last several weeks. Ever since I moved to Athens with my husband, God has been placing me in the right bible studies allowing me to see His word come alive and become more real to me than it ever has before. Oh how I love reading His word and not wanting to put down my Bible! God is so good! And He loves us so much! I hope you can be drawn into intimacy with Him and find His word as loving, caring, and full of hope.
Right now I am reading Crazy Love with my Life Group. The author is Francis Chan and he is determined to get the lukewarm christian to wake up and live for Christ! How can you be a christian without living for Christ? I have become more and more convicted about how my life is supposed to be different. I should not fit in. As a christian, if my life makes sense to an unbeliever, than I am not living as Christ wants me to. I hope Francis Chan doesn't mind, but I am going to share with you the many thoughts I had during the latest chapter of Crazy Love--Your best life...later.
Serving Christ just when it is convenient for me is not serving Him at all. God would rather me not worship, then go through the motions without my whole heart, soul, and mind being in it. I cannot count how many times I have come before God in prayer and just treated Him as if He were a friend riding in my passenger seat. Don't get me wrong. He is my friend. But He is far more. I have the opportunity every moment to come before the throne of God! And so often, I don't even grasp it! How dare me ever come before His throne and not be in awe. Not be overwhelmed! Not be speechless. Sometimes, don't you think God wants us to shut up and listen? Bask in His glory? Close our eyes and just...be in His presence. Sometimes I can get so lost in all my requests that I forget who I am talking to. Shame on me! I have a choice to make: I can just let life happen, which is tantamount to serving God my leftovers, or I can actively run toward Christ.
I can tell you what I want to do...what I know I need to do...oh, God give me the strength and endurance to run toward you!
In order to praise God fully, I have to do things in this life that will cost me on earth. I need to live recklessly for Him. I need to live as if each person I came in contact with were Christ. Does that seem blasphemous? Outrageous? Think about it for a moment. How would your life change if you actually thought of each person you came into contact with as Christ?
In Matthew 25, Jesus says that when we feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, give aid to the sick--whatever you do for the least of these you do for Him. Jesus is saying that we show tangible love for God in how we care for the poor and those who are suffering. He expects us to treat the poor and the desperate as if they are Christ Himself.
Wow! I can tell you I do not do that! But oh how I want to learn to see each person as Christ and treat them with love! Nothing short of all encompassing, Christ-centered, love!
I know I am typing so much...let me leave you with just this thought. By loving just one person, how much further can that compassion go? You will never know...but is it not worth it to know it might reach beyond your wildest hope?!
Have a blessed day!