Show The World Who You Represent! (Part 1)

Nothing stirred me more deeply this week than watching my dad pray for a homeless man. The man was hurting and needed help, and my dad stopped what he was doing to speak and pray with him.

When my dad finished, and we began walking away, I was moved in my heart. How many Christians have passed him by today without doing anything? The thought kept popping into my head, and it got me thinking.

We are followers of Jesus, which means we should be doing what He did. His disciples Peter and John knew how to follow his example, and they did in Acts 3.

There was a lame beggar by the gate of the temple they were visiting in which to pray, and they stopped. They stopped what they were doing and looked at him.

“Silver or gold I do not have,” Peter said, “But what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” He raised up the man by his hand, and he was healed! He went into the temple running, leaping, and praising God, and was an amazing testimony to all who saw him. Even the Pharisees–the ones who hated Jesus and his disciples most– could not deny the notable miracle they had seen.

That would not have happened if Peter and John hadn’t stopped what they were doing to invest in that man. They knew that Jesus would’ve done the exact same thing, because they lived life with Him for three whole years! They knew that Jesus loved people, and saw them as the most valuable beings on the earth.

Jesus was different, and so were His disciples. It was obviously clear to everybody that they weren’t normal, and we are called to do the same thing.

Because we are different, we are set apart by God, called to show the world just Who we represent. We aren’t supposed to look like every other person on earth, because we’re not like them. We have the Spirit of God living inside of us. God wouldn’t fill us with His Spirit if He expected us to live like those aren’t.

In 2 Corinthians 5:20, we are told that we are ambassadors of Christ.

Ambassadors are people who go into another country to represent their own. But there’s something special about ambassadors: they have diplomatic immunity.

Diplomatic immunity is a status given to an ambassador that exempts them from the laws of a foreign jurisdiction. The laws in that foreign country don’t apply to them the same way it does to the citizens living there. The ambassador is under the protection of the country they are representing.

We are ambassadors for the Kingdom of Light, God’s kingdom. We are different, and don’t have to live by the rules of the Kingdom of Darkness. God has empowered us with His authority, and He backs us up.

God wants us to represent Him and His kingdom properly. He has given us everything we need to do just that, and bring glory to Him in how we live our lives.

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Next week, I’ll publish part two of Show The World Who You Represent. I have a lot to say about this particular subject, so I decided that instead of trying to condense like crazy, I’m going to break it up into two different posts.

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