Words . . . Just Words!

     As you can imagine, even in only two weeks time, there has already been many things that have challenged me, frustrated me and made me laugh about living in a different culture.  Most recently I have laughed many times at the words that Kenyans use for some things that would be very recognizable to us Americans.  For instance, they call an interstate overpass a flyover.  If you need to speed up and catch someone on the road while driving . . . that is called overtake.  They call an iron (thing that you iron clothes with) an ironbox.  The trunk of a car is a boot and the hood of a car is the bonnet.  A trash can is called a dust bin and a flashlight is called a torch.  And my new word for today was gumboots which apparently is the same as a pair of rainboots.  Now i'm not telling you this to mock Kenyan words or to convince you of the superiority of American English but to just solely point out the differences in language.  But it is also fitting to me that i can at least understand the origin of where these funny Kenyan words came from (I can understand how they came up with the word flyover . . . it fits!).  I also tell you this to point out that two people can be speaking the same exact language (in this case english) and yet still not totally understand what the other is talking about.

     I have found this same concept at work in my study of Scripture.  Recently I have been teaching the kids the life of Christ out of the Gospels.  Specifically as I study through Luke I notice how people were amazed at Jesus' early teaching because he spoke as one who had authority.  Jesus' wisdom and knowledge of Scripture was obvious to those who heard him speak, even from a young age.  But soon, we begin to see Jesus' authoritative words accompanied by strong grace filled action with healing and acts of love towards social outcasts.  We see Jesus speaking the same religious talk as the Pharisees and teachers of the law and yet they were the very ones who misunderstood who he was.  In Luke 4, we witness Jesus be rejected by his hometown because they couldn't accept that Joseph's son was the Messiah.  In Luke 5, in response to Jesus forgiving the crippled man of his sins, we read that, "The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, 'Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy?  Who can forgive sins but God alone'" (Luke 5:21)?  As you can see the very people who should understand Jesus and know who he is just can't and don't know how to accept Jesus as the Messiah.
     Today, sometimes we can talk a lot of religious speak but never achieve any measured success in our lives or in other's lives.  Sometimes we say all the right things but our lives don't match up to those right words!  Does this describe you?  Do your actions measure up to the righteous life you talk about?  My encouragement to you today is to seek to be like Jesus . . . follow up your spiritual words with decisive action that can change your life and others.