Coldness Strikes

The morning temp says cold. The advice from a certain large corporation says cold too. Telling your employees to eat stale bread sounds remarkably like that famous quote from Marie Antoinette, "Let them eat cake." Some of the outrage is due to the source. If a beggar on the streets of Paris in the late 1700's had given advice something like, "Well, comrade, if you don't have the ingredients to bake bread, there is a way to make cake with..." No one would remember that quote because the fellow was probably insane with hunger. The ingredients for bread and cake are quite similar, so Ms. Antoinette goes down as one of the coldest rulers in history. However, if a beggar gives out advice to another beggar for bread substitutes it is not considered cold. In the right context it might even come across as funny. When the wealthy try to give out advice on living poor, they are viewed as cold and greedy. Their advice may be good, bad, or indifferent, but to even give it from their position of plenty brings well-deserved criticism.

To avoid even the appearance of coldness, we had better walk the mile and the additional mile before we attempt to give advice. The great thing about this life is that we all started out as sinners. Therefore, when it comes to the good news of Jesus Christ we can give a good answer for our faith. I know what forgiveness is because I came from unbelief and sin too. You know what the love of Jesus is because you know what it is like to have love reach out to the undeserving. We all know what it feels like to live as a lost sheep, and how we did nothing to deserve our Shepherd's rescue. We don't speak from a position of plenty in our righteousness, but of humble experience and grace given to us by the only righteous One.

Our message is not condescending because we all walked that dreadful mile of guilt and shame before Jesus saved us. We are rich in grace now, but we first lived in debt to sin and justice. Our advice is not on how to get by as a sinner, but to join us in faith and the riches of love, grace, peace, and holiness given by God. Hallelujah!

Bucky

P.S. Just a note to the cold: Ya know, serving the customer and taking care of your employees is not impossible. To do both is only a paraphrase of the command of our Lord Jesus to love your neighbor as yourself.