ARE YOU JESUS?

[Gaynell DeLappe]

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 accidentally 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.

Let us live like we are worth the price He paid!

When there is nothing left but God, that is when you find out that God is
all you need.

Author Unknown


Read and meditate on these scriptures:

1 Thessalonians 5:11-14 “Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify
one another, even as also ye do.  And we beseech you, brethren, to know
them which labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish
you; And to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake.  And be
at peace among yourselves.  Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that
are unruly, comfort the feeble minded, support the weak, be patient toward
all men.”

Matthew 6:19-21 Jesus declares, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon
earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through
and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither
moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor
steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

1 John 4:7-11 “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and
every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.  He that loveth not
knoweth not God; for God is love.  In this was manifested the love of God
toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that
we might live through Him.  Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that
He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved,
if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.”

2 Timothy 4:7-8 “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I
have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that
day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing.”

All of these scriptures can be found in the King James Version Bible.