Dear Friends

Are you Jesus?

Most will know the story of the man running to catch a train who bumps into a small boy playing with his swap cards. The cards are scattered about the platform and the man has to choose between catching his train or helping the boy. He decides to help the boy and misses his train. After they have found and picked up all the cards the man apologises and is about to walk off to find out when his next train is when the boy asks him “Mister, are you Jesus?”

A similar story is told of a down and out shelter where a Christian [let’s call him Peter] over some time has been lovingly helping a tramp. One day a service is held at the centre and the trump who is a little intoxicated goes along for something to do. Not being familiar with the person of Jesus the tramp gets bored by the preacher going on about Jesus and begins to get a bit troublesome. He is asked to leave which only makes him belligerent until the speaker has to stop and comes up to him and says “You need to change and become like Jesus!” To this the tramp replies “I don’t want to be like Jesus – I want to be like Peter!”

Both stories illustrate the same concept. Being like Jesus or mistaken for Him must surely be the greatest compliment one could be paid.

I’d like to challenge our membership in Scotland to take a careful look at Jesus – how he treated prostitutes and ‘sinners’, related to children, respected the outsider and those of other faiths, cared for the poor and the lonely, and then ask ourselves if the way we treat others could possibly lead others to mistakenly ask “Are you Jesus?”

What greater tool for evangelism and witness might our presence in Scotland be if we thoughtfully sought to measure our lives not by what we think is right but simply by the meekness and disinterested love of Jesus.

Ellen White wrote, “Now that Jesus has ascended to heaven, His disciples are His representatives among men, and one of the most effective ways of winning souls to Him is in exemplifying His character in our daily life. Our influence upon others depends not so much upon what we say as upon what we are. Men may combat and defy our logic, they may resist our appeals; but a life of disinterested love is an argument they cannot gainsay. A consistent life, characterized by the meekness of Christ, is a power in the world.” DA141

Are you Jesus?

Llewellyn Edwards