Happy People, Happy Me!

This week's message from Max is part of a current series in which every church member is called upon to participate in making 100 Happy People.  The series started back on February 9, and continues until March 20.  That should figure out to about 40 days, and each of us is to bring some happiness into the lives of 100 people.  The whole idea is for us to be so much like Jesus, there will be a seed of happiness being planted in the lives of those we touch.  It's like we will be helping others by our efforts of "going the extra mile" for 100 people.

Does that sound like a challenge today's church people are capable of doing?  If you were participating, where would you start?   From what I detect, it takes the church member out of the pew and into the world to actually make some kind of contact with real people who need a smile, or a hug, or maybe even a boost in the right direction.  That's a big task in the lives of some.......including me. 

We get ourselves so busy with work and school and duties and responsibilities, we fail to be the type of person to bring happiness into the lives of others.  One point made today was that Jesus was always making people happier through their encounter with him.  The woman at the well was happy to learn of "living water" that Jesus could give her, while telling her she would never thirst again.  Or perhaps you can see this kind of happiness in the woman brought to Jesus, after being caught in the act of adultery, and hearing him say, "neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more."

The lead verse in the sermon today came from Romans 15:7, which says, "Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God."

We may have read and even studied the verse on numerous occasions, but its application today brought me to realize the purpose of this study is two-fold.  First, in making people experience happiness through some deed we can do for them.  Second, it is giving every church member some "on the job training" in actually being Jesus by imitating his heart in our actions toward others.

Oh, I know the greatest commandment is for me to love God completely, and the second is like it, as I am to love others, too.  Today's verse about accepting one another seems to go a little beyond that.  I'm first commanded to love you and I try to do that even though some of the people I meet in life are so unlovable.  That even means the "accepting one another" is more difficult when it is so obvious some people are not acceptable.  Doesn't Paul, in the verse from Romans 15, know that?   Our world today has so many people doing and saying things that make it hard for me to accept them.  There are drug dealers in the community where I live.  There are drunks and thieves, gossips and slanderers, and even those who deny the existence of God or the saving power of Jesus.

Paul's verse instructs you and me to accept them, and others, in the same way Jesus accepted us.  Here is where we sometimes draw the line.  We have become accustomed to believing and possibly even teaching that people need to clean themselves up and come to Jesus.  But notice, that's backwards.

The invitation of Jesus is actually for us to come to him, and let him clean us up.  See the difference?  If we are to accept each other as Jesus accepted us, then we do not set the terms.  After all, didn't Jesus accept each of us just as we were?  That's one reason we cling to the Bible verse that tells us, "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

I've accepted the challenge to be more like Jesus in my encounters with other people, and maybe you should consider it, too.  Loving and accepting people like Jesus did, cannot help but make them happier. Who are you going to first, to bring the seed of happiness into their lives?

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