The Meme. It has
become the heart and soul of the Internet.
Whether you find it on as pictures posted within Facebook, Twitter, or
Instagram, the meme has become the familiar, the common, the expected within
the world wide web that is our virtual universe. You know what I'm talking about -- stunning
photographs of nature or of people engaged in personal reflection superimposed
with words of wisdom or quotations from the world's intellectuals.
It used to be these memes existed only in corporate America, in the
form of motivational posters.
Occasionally, the more concise thoughts would find their way into the
collective bumper-sticker cacophony. But
now they are everywhere. Just a quick
glance at my Facebook page shows that almost half of all status updates are
memes, photographs with poignant or philosophical ponderings. And the problem with this is not their
ubiquity, but their commonness. No
matter how profound the statement, no matter how applicable the truth, the
message of the meme is overwhelmed by the noise of information in our world
today and the truths are simply read, received, and accepted without any
serious thought or application.
Take the message that crossed my path today. "Do ordinary things better than anyone
else." Normally, I would have just
done as the rest of the world and read the post without any other
consideration. But, for some reason, I
stopped and asked myself the question, "Why?" Is this the goal for our lives? To do ordinary things better than anyone
else? Is this the purpose for which we
were made?
In 1 Corinthians 11:1 we read the Apostle Paul's words,
"Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ." The implication their is that we are to
become like Christ. To live as He
lived. To do as He did. To go about our days as He went about His
here on earth. To be different from the
rest of the world.
Our goal should not to be to do things like everyone
else. To be common. Normal.
Ordinary. Our goal should be to
be extraordinary. To be like Jesus. To imitate Him. And Jesus was far from ordinary.
What does it mean to imitate Jesus? What does it mean to live outside
normal? It means to love, and I’m
talking about God’s agape, unconditional love.
To love with an other-worldly love.
To love others no matter the cost.
To love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
To love with extraordinary love means we touch hearts,
change lives, believe in the impossible.
We live outside the ordinary because we have been touched and changed
through the power of God within us. We
believe God has a greater plan for our life and that person we just passed than
this world has to offer. We don’t try to
do ordinary things better than everyone else.
We do the extraordinary things the world says is impossible because
Jesus says ordinary is not the norm for a Christian. With God, all things are possible. Even the extraordinary.
Pastor Greg
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