Live Like That seems simpler than it is. Sure, there is the non-nuanced, unrealistic, simple response that disingenuously supposes living the life that Christ intends for us is a watered-down and serene niceness that somehow reflects Christian discipleship. There is a part of me that wants to succumb to that very faith expression. But life and faith are more complicated.
Live Like That is catchy. It looks good on bumper stickers, websites, window clings, and functions as the pithy punctuation every church community might envy. The end to every sentence, the end to every mission moment is emphatically concluded with LIVE LIKE THAT. Catchy is good but it has to have substance or words are just words.
What Live Like That means is having all the moments of life girded, rooted, and steeped in the assurance that God’s got us in Christ Jesus. That is gift, undeserved, unmerited and ridiculously grace-filled.
Live Like That is the response to that gift. Cannot help it. By way of Christ’s sacrifice, goodness, mercy, forgiveness, and justice — goodness, mercy, forgiveness, and justice are to be the way of my life. I know I fall short and those disappointments will continue, but hope fuels me to live God’s love for me and for everyone else!
As Jesus calls disciples, the scriptures tell us that immediately the disciples leave an old way of life and begin a new one. It is with Jesus, disciples begin to proclaim good news, cure the sick, and teach about God’s kingdom coming to be in their very presence. Jesus still calls disciples into mission.
Live Like That is faith in action whenever and wherever I am.
Live Like That can and should be mantra, it should be personal, but it is most powerful, most faithful, most definitely a sign of discipleship when it is not only lived out personally but also communally. Community is for encouraging, for questioning, for holding one another accountable, and for making conviction into movement. At St. Philip it is our hope for church community to be all of those things. We seek to name for one another signs that God’s love is lived out in one another. We seek to give credence and honor to questions about faith and life. We speak the truth in love as we live out forgiveness and grace. We expect not only the church community to be different because of Jesus, but neighborhood and all of neighborhood’s expressions to be different as well.
That is what Live Like That means.