how then shall we live?

A friend and I meet nearly every week at a favorite restaurant for lunch.  We've been doing so for years.  Every week the same people wait on us and tend to our needs.  Just recently my friend began asking the names of those who serve us every week so that we could better know them.  He even keeps track of their names in a note on his phone.  What a great idea!  Now we can pray for them by name and be open for what God might want to do in and through me (us) when we dine there.  As the Apostle John reminded us on Sunday, And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life.  And this life is in his Son.  Whoever has the Son has life.  Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life (1 John 5.11-12).

John's words are straightforward and blunt.  The temptation, of course, is to aim them at those who do not yet have the life John speaks of, as if they were weapons.  But John's words are written first and foremost to us - those of us who claim to know God, follow Jesus and pursue God's purposes in the world.

Even though John's straightforward words are not intended as weapons, they are intended to inform and equip us as followers of Jesus.  If eternal, abundant, God-intended life is only found in the Son of God, how then ought we to live our lives, go about our business and engage in our relationships with others?  What difference should it make?  What ought our attitude be toward those who do not yet have the life God offers us in and through his Son?  If God really did "so love the world that he gave his one and only Son," what are we to do with that message in the 97% of our waking hours lived outside of ECC and ECC-related events?

Certainly we do not have to preach it on street corners (though that may indeed be what God calls some to do).  Nor do we have to inject our faith into every conversation we have with those who do not yet have the life we have.  Rather, we ought to begin, I think, with prayer.  Let us pray for our neighbors and co-workers, family members and friends and those we barely know.  My hope is, as I begin to more intentionally pray for my friends at the restaurant (and my neighbors and family members as well), that God will open doors, ears and hearts for us to bear witness to the testimony of eternal life in Christ Jesus.  We all need to be reminded from time to time, as church consultant Bill Easum says, "Jesus always comes to us on his way to someone else."