I need to go to Galveston.
I was just sitting sorting through my 23,000-line Excel file of email addresses and I suddenly had this massive longing to hear the gulf and feel the sand being sucked out from under my toes. I want to eat shrimp fresh cooked after buying them off the pier and search the shore for whole sand dollars.
Anybody want to go?
I love the Lethal Weapon series. Yes, it’s profane but the story is fantastic and so are the characters, not to mention the acting. You might think it’s funny, but when I read the verse of the day today, I immediately thought of Lethal Weapon 2.
No, not the part about blowing up a toilet (although that’s got to be one of the best movie moments in cinema history).
The very end part — where the Facist South African ambassador is standing on the top deck of the ship, shooting Riggs over and over again and Murtaugh takes aim to take him down. The ambassador holds up his credentials and shouts, “Diplomatic immunity!” And Murtaugh, with his trusty six-shooter, shoots him anyway.
How many times have we been there? Not literally, obviously, because I’m pretty sure I’ve never shot anybody. But as Christians, we are ambassadors for Christ. So how many of us use that position like Arjen Rudd did in Lethal Weapon 2? We use the power we obtain to live the life we want to live, and we don’t care who we hurt along the way. And, more importantly, we don’t care what people think about us and leave most people with a sour taste in our mouths when they think about Christianity. This is what the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:19-20:
19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”
We speak for Christ. We are His ambassadors on Earth. That’s our job.
As Christ’s ambassadors, though, we won’t be punished when we go to heaven. If you know Christ, you’re safe. It’s our own brand of diplomatic immunity, I suppose. We’re here to reach out to people and show them God’s love through Christ, but most of the time, don’t we usually just think about ourselves? Do we even bother thinking about how our actions will hurt other people? Or do we consider how our actions might make people think about Christ? There’s an old saying that you are the only Bible some people will ever read, and that’s very true. If someone who doesn’t believe looks at your life and sees nothing attractive about it, why would they want anything to do with your faith?
Because of God’s love and mercy, even if we live that way, we still get to go to heaven — but the people we’ve hurt or influenced won’t.
So pay attention to how you act and what you say. People are watching more closely than you think. And in today’s world, you don’t have to wear a skirt or speak in King James English to be different. All you have to do is love people, and everyone will notice.
Okay? Okay. Okay. Okay-okay-okay. Okay.
Always Peachy 