Another Shot, Please

I have to share about my recent trips to Jamba Juice (a smoothie place in town where I’ve been a frequent customer for about two years now). I usually get a shot or two of wheatgrass each time I go. One ounce of this green juice is equivalent to 2 pounds of green vegetables. They serve it on a plate with a slice of orange to chase it with (kind of like a tequila shot).

I am not here to endorse this product, although I could for quite some time. I do want to tell you about the way other customers react while I enjoy the shots. They look at me like I am a freak. You would think they just saw a UFO. It's like I have alien eyeballs swinging side to side on top of my head. "Who's the dude from another galaxy drinking the Martian juice?"

Recently, I even overheard a mom explain to her kindergartner that I was drinking the stuff he runs around on in their front yard. She told him, “It’s like our grass at home, but a little different.” He asked why in the world somebody would drink that, and his mom graciously said some people actually like it.

Most of these people have never seen someone drink wheatgrass, so it is really odd to them and understandably so. I have never felt so uncomfortable (which is a sad indictment on me as a Christian). Imagine having an entire store look at you while you are eating or drinking something. I must say I felt a bit persecuted for my health beliefs. It was then that I realized this is how I should feel every day for what I believe spiritually. Jesus said it like this, "If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you."

I want to encourage you to let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Don't let the discomfort of the situation change your behavior. You should feel uncomfortable in this sin-infested place. Satan is the god of this world. Sin is running rampant. Thankfully, where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. You won't be fully comfortable until you reach your home in heaven. That is where your citizenship is. That is where you belong. We are strangers here on earth. We are just passing through waiting for our mansions to be built in heaven.

I realized from this wheatgrass experience how life should be for us. People should continually look at our Christian life with amazement and say, "I've never seen that before. What is that?" We should be showing the world a new and better way, one which is foreign to them.

Turn your light on by living what you believe and let the whole world see it. Let me insert here that it is vitally important (life and death hang in the balance) for you to believe the Bible. If you live what you believe but your beliefs don’t come from the Bible, nobody is going to be glorifying your Father in heaven.

As we grow stronger in our relationship with Jesus, we will eventually get to the place where the stares of others and their persecution don’t matter much to us anymore. But until that time comes, we need to live like Jesus even when doing so makes us feel uncomfortable.