Living Life Jesus Style

This past weekend our church was privileged to have Brother Gayle Erwin here from Cathedral City, CA for a series based on his book The Jesus Style. (You can get the audio book here for free or call Servant’s Quarters and order the book.) Oh the flesh doesn’t like it, but like Jesus said, if we want to find life then we need to lose ours. That’s an oxymoron from our perspective, lose my life to find it? However if we just take a moment to look back over our lives we can quickly see it is a time tested and proven truth. Think with me for a moment. When are we most miserable? Never more than when we are focused on ourselves. Just last week (before our meetings) I heard of a very successful and wealthy business man who overcame serious depression when on the advice of a trusted friend he began to think of those who helped him become successful and then began writing letters of gratefulness to thank them for what they had done for him. This man had tried everything including seeing a number of doctors and psychological/psychiatric help until he finally ended up at a mental hospital where his good friend gave him the life-changing advice. Sometimes I may want to boast of how everything I have I earned by the sweat of my brow or perhaps we’ll hear someone talk about being a self-made man. Certainly hard work does make a difference, but in all reality we do not have one single thing that wasn’t given to us in one form or another. To see this we have to look no further than our entrance into this world. We are totally helpless at that point and without the life-giving/preserving efforts of our parents or someone in their place we wouldn’t last past day two. Over the years input and various gifts from people in our lives such as teachers prepare us to make our hard work count for something. Even some of the least privileged in life must receive help of some degree or the opportunity to “become their own person” would never materialize. Why is it so hard to have consistently grateful attitudes? I believe it’s because gratefulness is about as others-oriented as it gets and by nature I’m usually looking out for me before I think of anyone else. Jesus’ life epitomizes an others-oriented life, nothing He did was to serve Himself. His focus was totally on the will of the Father and hurting and dying world (people) around him. Truly the heart of a servant! When we hear it someone share their story of a life-given and see the results of having a servant heart we’re inspired and we’d love to have those results for our own story, but when it comes time to live it out the glamor disappears and suddenly we find ourselves looking for a way out. Ahh welcome to public enemy number one – self! The only one who can prevent me from experiencing inner peace and happiness – self. So what’s wrong with the world? As G.K. Chesterton once put it, I am (me).