Living and Concrete

Are you more attracted to someone who is compassionate? Who dignifies human beings?  Values them?

Or are you more drawn to someone who is cruel? Who degrades vulnerable people by making a spectacle of them?

None of us is living alive, unless we are living with concrete hope.

Not wishful thinking or sentimental luck.

This is where God comes in because we can’t manufacture living hope on our own. Especially when thinking about our relationships and connections with the opposite sex.

Only God can.

So, what does this living, concrete hope look like?

It looks, acts, sounds, and relates personally to others like Jesus.

The crowds followed Jesus on foot from the towns. When Jesus saw a large crowd, He had compassion on them and healed their sick (Matthew 14:13-14, NIV).

Masses and masses of people.

Like Jesus, living, concrete hope sees each person.

It pays attention to the way we speak to one another.

Not in anger.

Or self-centeredness.

How we speak will affect how we treat each other.

Think about it this way,

Are you more attracted to someone who is compassionate?  Who dignifies human beings?  Values them?

Or are you more drawn to someone who is cruel?  Self-serving?  Who degrades vulnerable people by making a spectacle of them?

The thing is, and this could sound polarizing in our highly sensitive, highly contentious public discourse,

Living, concrete hope is neither political.

Nor is it attached to a political party.

Look again at Jesus.

Everywhere He goes, people flock to Him. 

Why?

Because He personally looks at each man and woman and treats them with living hope — compassion, empathy, truthfulness, dignity.

This is Jesus.

He personally sees each and every one of us, men and women lovingly created and knit together in our mother’s womb in the image of God.

Jesus shows us firsthand through the totality of His humanness - His thoughts, actions, emotions, speech — how to live alive with living, concrete hope as we live with one another.