Posted in Random Thoughts

EXCUSE ME, ARE YOU JESUS?

A few years ago a group of salesmen went to a regional sales convention in
Chicago. They had assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of
time for Friday night's dinner. In their rush, with tickets and briefcases,
one of these salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table which held a display
of apples. Apples flew everywhere. Without stopping or looking back, they
all managed to reach the plane in time for their nearly missed boarding.

ALL BUT ONE!!! He paused, took a deep breath, got in touch with his
feelings, and experienced a twinge of compassion for the girl whose apple
stand had been overturned.

He told his buddies to go on without him, waved good-bye, told one of them
to call his wife when they arrived at their home destination and explain his
taking a later flight. Then he returned to the terminal where the apples
were all over the terminal floor.

He was glad he did.

The 16 year old girl was totally blind! She was softly crying, tears
running down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly
groping for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her, no one
stopping and no one to care for her plight.

The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the apples, put them
back on the table and helped organize her display. As he did this, he
noticed that many of them had become battered and bruised; these he set
aside in another basket.

When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the girl, "Here,
please take this $40 for the damage we did. Are you okay?" She nodded
through her tears. He continued on with, "I hope we didn't spoil your day
too badly."

As the salesman started to walk away, the bewildered blind girl called out
to him, "Mister...." He paused and turned to look back into those blind
eyes. She continued, "Are you Jesus?"

He stopped in mid-stride, and he wondered. Then slowly he made his way to
catch the later flight with that question burning and bouncing about in his
soul: "Are you Jesus?" Do people mistake you for Jesus? That's our
destiny, is it not? To be so much like Jesus that people cannot tell the
difference as we live and interact with a world that is blind to His love,
life and grace.

If we claim to know Him, we should live, walk and act as He would.

Knowing Him is more than simply quoting Scripture and going to church. It's
actually living the Word as life unfolds day to day.

You are the apple of His eye even though we, too, have been bruised by a
fall. He stopped what He was doing and picked you and me up on a hill
called Calvary and paid in full for our damaged fruit.

CONTINUE PRAYING, KEEPING ALERT AND ALWAYS THANKING GOD. COL. 4:2