Identify Jesus In People | 5 Choices For Women Who Win by Daisy Washburn Osborn

PART V

Identify Jesus In People

PERCEIVE A BRAND-NEW view of humanity. Get Christ’s perspective.

You will see Jesus in believers—and even in unbelievers.

Jesus is destitute in the indigent.

He is sick in the diseased.

He is captive in the prisoner.

Jesus is the recipient of every thing that you do for people.

The works of Christ are not carried out by charities. Jesus in you and in me is the Charity in action which our world needs.

Never underestimate what Christ will do through you AS YOU SEE HIM IN PEOPLE.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

IDENTIFYJESUS IN PEOPLE

YOU WILL BE on the winning team when you make the noble choice to recognize and to identify Jesus in needy human persons around you.

LET US AGAIN review the scriptures presented at the beginning of this book .

Jesus gave us a revelation of His identity in people.

Jesus said: What you do to the least of humanity, you do
to me.Mt.25:40

He was saying:

“When I had NO HOME, you shared yours.

“When I had NO CLOTHES, you gave me yours.

“When I was TIRED, you helped me find a place to rest.

“When I was AFRAID, you gave me assurance.

“When I was ALONE, you were my friend. “When I was IN JAIL, you came to my cell. “When I was SICK, you nursed me back to health. “When I LOST MY JOB, you helped me find work. “When I was AGED, you made me feel needed. “When I was MOCKED, you stood by my side. “When I SORROWED, you shared my grief.”

“When I was HAPPY, you laughed with me.

That is the way we identify Jesus in people.

Expressing Love

Mother Theresa, of Calcutta, India can tell you about loving people. She has made the life-changing CHOICE of LOVING ACTION, ministering to the dying, to the poor, to the lonely and to those in despair who exist in Calcutta with no one to love them or to care for them.

This extraordinary woman’s life of loving people is based on her choice to identify Jesus in people.

Mother Theresa says:

“ By getting in touch with people, we find God. Because we cannot see Christ, we cannot express our love to Him; but our neighbors we can always see, and we can do to them what, if we saw Christ, we would like to do to Him.”

“ Our works are only an expression of our love for Christ. Our hearts need to be full of love for Him and since we have to express that love in action, naturally then (people) are the means of expressing our love for God.”

She adds, and I agree:

“It is not the poor who are indebted to us but we who are indebted to them. They make it possible for us to serve God.”

To fully comprehend this truth, we need divine inspiration but the information is given to us by Jesus Himself. So let us set aside custom and tradition and receive a brand-new view of humanity from Christ’s perspective.

Culture in the industrialized world says:

“Let the church meet the spiritual needs of the poor. But let the state welfare or social agencies meet their physical human needs.”

That is not what Jesus taught and that was not His living example to us.

Reviewing the Preview

This preview of judgment makes clear that the righteous people who had God’s attitude toward humankind, were involved meeting the physical needs and the emotional hurts of humanity.

You will be on the winning team when you make the vital choice to identify Jesus in the hurts, in the pains and in the needs of people.

Does that sound like a paradox?

Jesus is so pure, so perfect, so exalted.

Yet His love for human persons is so great that He becomes Destitute in the indigent person,
Sick in the diseased person,

Captive in the prisoner.

When we identify Jesus

In distress,

In poverty,

In nakedness,

In sickness,

We will reach out to those who are suffering.

Jesus says:

“ As you have blessed this person, you have blessed me. When you sheltered that street-person, you sheltered me.”

You see, Jesus Christ speaks to us through people all around us. How many times does He appear personally and give us our marching orders?

The winner in life learns that amidst the hard, earthly facts and circumstances of secular reality appears the guiding light of divine guidance. When we look at our world, usually common sense and good judgment become God’s distinct signals — loud and clear of what we are to do.

The practical truth of the gospel is obvious in people all around us. Christ speaks to us most often and most clearly
through them.

Love Is Serving

The Constitution of “The International Association of Co-Workers of Mother Theresa” incorporates, among other basics, such articles as:

Helping people recognize God in the person of the poor.

Helping people to love God better through works of

charity and service to the poor.

Helping all Co-Workers to express their love of God through service to the poor.

Recognizing the dignity, the individuality and the infinite value of every human life.

The keynote of giving is Love and Service.

Mother Theresa says:

“ I believe in person to person contact. Every person is Christ for me, and since there is only one Jesus, that one person is the only person in the world for me at that moment.”

I love the words of a song I heard recently:

Jesus said, When you love someone

In my name, you’re loving me.

Jesus said, When you touch someone

In my name, you’re touching me.

Jesus said, when you reach someone

In my name, you’re reaching me.

Love Is Healing

Albert Schweitzer identified the Lord in needy people — as He understood Christ. He showed it by choosing a life-commitment of LOVING ACTION on behalf of people. He could tell you about loving people.

This distinguished, highly-educated gentleman received over 50 honorary doctorates, besides the many which he had

earned.

He left European culture and devoted himself, in the jungles of Africa, to build and to operate a great hospital where he could help, heal and give hope and care to the poor.

To Albert Schweitzer, that was his way of winning in life. He chose to recognize and to identify divinity in the poorest of humanity.

Our Mission to Millions

Throughout nearly four decades of our lives, our constant choice has been, and is, to reach out to help, to lift, to save, to heal, to inspire and to bless people in over 70 different nations already.

Identifying Christ in people, then loving them in His name, is the only way we know to express our love for God or to God.

When we do that, we know we have made one of life’s most significant choices — one which constantly keeps us on the winning team with God.

Our culture makes it easy for us to forget the people who are freezing to death each winter. We can forget about them because “there are charities for the needy.”

But the fact is that Jesus, in you and in me, is the charity in action which our world needs most.

The Lad Who Got the Idea

Remember the young boy named Trevor who gave a blanket to a street person because he could not bear the thought of people being cold?

After he did that, his family and the entire congregation at his church got involved in meeting human needs.

They chose to identify Jesus in people. As they gave clothes to the destitute and blankets to those who were cold, they were clothing and warming Jesus in a human person.

What you do for people, you are doing for Him.

I have been blessed with a life full of opportunities to do just that. I have identified Jesus in lepers, in the hungry, in the dying, in the naked, in the prisoner, in the stranger, in the deranged.

I have ministered to those suffering people in over 70 nations of my world.

But in reality, I am ministering TO CHRIST when I minister TO PEOPLE.

The Mother with Her Dead Child

At a National Women’s Conference in Accra, Ghana, a mother came to me with an unbearable hurt. Her baby daughter had died. She put the little stiff corpse in my arms.

What a helpless feeling that is — unless you identify Jesus in people, including yourself. You never know what you will do under any given circumstance. But when you practice living the Jesus-life then you will be a Jesus-person regardless of the situation.

With the little body held close to mine, I began to pray. As I rebuked death and commanded life to come back in the child’s body, in the powerful name of Jesus, I felt a faint quiver in the blanket. Before long I was able to present the child back to her mother, completely healed.

I knew the child was very much alive, but another great miracle had taken place which I was not aware of.

When the mother opened the blanket to look at her daughter, she began to scream and to jump up and down.

After some minutes I was able to understand her excitement. The baby had been born with only one eye. But when Jesus restored her to life, He also gave her a second eye. As the child looked at her mother, both of her big brown eyes sparkled with life — the new life that Jesus had given to her.

Never underestimate what Christ will do through you as you identify Him in people. When you do that, you will be on His winning team.

Jesus Among People

We do not look up in the sky or into the depths of the

ocean to find Jesus. We do not look in the sanctuary or on the altar to find Him. We do not even need to travel the world to find Him.

We just need to look around us and see people. When we really see them, we will identify Jesus in them. Then we are on His winning team.

If you look you will see Jesus in people, out where they are — where they live, where they work, where they play. All human beings are created in the image of God — so you will see Jesus in believers — and even in unbelievers.

When you see Jesus in human persons, you will feed the hungry — with natural food and with spiritual food. It is not one or the other; it is BOTH.

There are two kinds of hunger. There is the physical hunger which is satisfied by food. Then there is the spiritual hunger which is satisfied by God.

Share the good news of the gospel and become involved socially as well as spiritually.

You are on the winning team when you choose to get involved with real people who have real needs because you identify Jesus in them.

Give drink to the thirsty, remembering that there are two kinds of thirst. There is the physical thirst that is satisfied by drinking water. Then there is the spiritual thirst that is satisfied by Christ.

The Stranger We Entertained

When you identify Jesus in people you may even entertain some strangers. I have done it often.

One evening when I was visiting a friend in the hospital, I noticed an elderly gentleman in the lobby, weeping alone. I approached the man and asked if I could be of help.

His wife had had a serious heart attack and was in the intensive care unit. It was late at night. He was a stranger in the city. He had been unable to contact any of his family. He was afraid to leave his wife. The hospital staff could not permit him to stay in Intensive Care with her. He was in despair.

I was able to contact his son, to arrange for any emergency about his wife, and to comfort and to encourage him.

I took him to our house where my husband made him some nice hot chocolate while I fixed his bath water and prepared his bed. The old gentleman had a comfortable night and I took him back to his wife’s bedside early the next morning.

Anyone could do something as simple as that.

The Living Bible says: Don’t forget to be kind to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it.He.13:2LB

You will never have prejudice against any other human

person, once you choose to identify Jesus in people. You will not base your involvement with them on their race, their language, their sex or their religion.

When you see yourself as God sees you, you will see others the way God sees them.

And when you see people the way God sees them, you will be a compassionate person, just as Jesus was.

You will clothe the naked.

You will feed the hungry.

You will give drink to the thirsty.

You will visit the prisoner and the sick.

Jesus—People in Action

We are Jesus-persons, God’s expression on this earth, delivering the captives and setting at liberty them that are

bruised.Lu.4:18 We do this consistently for anybody and for everybody whom we encounter in need.

Jesus said: The people that are whole do not need a physician. But the ones that are sick sure do. I have not come to call the righteous but to call sinners to repentance.Mt.9:12-13

Because we have Jesus’ nature in us, we do the same things that He did when He was on this earth. We do them because Jesus is now in us and He is the same yesterday and

today and forever.He.13:8

We have the right to choose to allow Him to be the same in and through us.

Jesus is the recipient of every thing that you do for other people — every gentle word that you speak; every uplifting thought that you share; every good deed that you do; every loving kindness that you extend; every healing touch that you impart.

Jesus is the one receiving your goodness, your kindness, your gentleness, your love, your thoughtfulness, your forgiveness.

And Jesus is the one who is neglected when you do not do these good, kind, thoughtful, loving things to people.

When we say that God is good, the only way that can be actualized is when we choose to allow God to be good in and through us. WE are the proof that God is good when He is allowed to show His goodness and His love through us.

I trust this has helped you in this fourth vital choice or option in life — the decision to choose to identify Jesus in people.

NOW I AM READY to share with you the fifth life-changing choice which you have the right and the freedom to make today. It is, no doubt, one of the most significant choices you will ever make to transform you into a real, solid winner in life.