Reflect Jesus

“Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.”

Galatians 6:10 (NKJV)

Here is a question that has followed me for years. If people could only learn what Jesus is like by watching how I treat them, what picture would they receive?

That question is uncomfortable, and it should be. Because being the image of Christ is not about looking religious. It is about reflecting His character, and character shows up in how people are treated when nothing is at stake.

Look at what Jesus was actually like.

He had compassion. Matthew records repeatedly that when He saw the crowds, He was moved with compassion. The word is visceral; it describes being affected in the gut.

He made room for the weak. The children, the leper, the beggar, the woman with a reputation. The people everyone else regarded as an interruption were the people He stopped for.

He told the truth. He was not merely nice. He confronted hypocrisy directly and told people things they did not want to hear, because love and honesty were not in competition in Him.

He served. He washed feet.

And He carried burdens that were not His own, all the way to a cross.

Paul writes, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.”

Notice the word “therefore,” because it points back. Paul has just been writing about sowing and reaping, and about not growing weary in doing good. And notice the two words that shape the command.

“As we have opportunity.” That is realistic language. Paul is not describing a crusade; he is describing responsiveness. Opportunities arrive; the question is whether we notice them and act.

In 1973 two Princeton psychologists ran an experiment that has become famous. They asked a group of trainee ministers to prepare a short talk, some of them on the parable of the Good Samaritan, and then sent them across campus to give it. On the way, each one passed a man slumped in a doorway, coughing and groaning. What decided whether they stopped was not the subject they were about to preach on. It was whether they had been told they were running late. Some of those hurrying to speak about the Good Samaritan stepped right over him.

Most of us are not unkind. We are just in a hurry.

“To all, especially to those of the household of faith.” Both halves. Christians are to do good to everyone, without qualification, and to have a particular care for the family of believers. Not one instead of the other.

Now, opportunities to show Christ usually appear in very ordinary forms.

Someone needs patience, and you are the fourth person to explain the same thing today. Someone needs encouragement, and one specific sentence would carry them through the week. Someone needs practical help: a lift, a meal, an hour of your Saturday. And often, someone simply needs you to listen without turning the conversation back to yourself.

That last one is harder than it sounds. Most of us listen while assembling our reply.

And sometimes compassion costs. Time, comfort, money, energy. That is precisely why love in the Bible is more than sentiment. David refused to offer God something that cost him nothing, and the principle carries. If our love never costs us anything, we should ask whether it is love or merely goodwill.

Two cautions.

First, you cannot meet every need, and God has not called you to rescue everybody. Read the very next verses in Galatians 6 and Paul says each one should bear his own load, having said a few verses earlier that we should bear one another’s burdens. Both are true; there is a distinction between someone’s crushing burden and their ordinary responsibility. Wisdom is knowing which is which. Trying to carry everything is not Christlikeness; it is a shortcut to collapse and it often disempowers the person you are helping.

So respond faithfully to the opportunities God genuinely places in front of you. Not the imagined ones. Not everyone’s. Yours.

Second, do not separate this from the gospel. Doing good is not a substitute for the message; it makes the message credible. Jesus fed people and He told them the truth. If we only ever feed and never speak, we have withheld the greatest kindness available.

And remember where reflection comes from. A mirror does not generate light; it receives it. Paul says we are “being transformed into the same image from glory to glory” as we behold the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18). You will reflect Him in proportion to how much you are looking at Him. Time in His presence is not separate from serving people; it is the source of it.

One more caution, because reflecting Christ can be misheard as reflecting only His gentleness.

Jesus was compassionate, and He was also direct. He wept over Jerusalem and He overturned tables in the temple. He welcomed the woman caught in adultery and He told her to go and sin no more. A picture of Jesus made only of niceness is not the Jesus of the Gospels, and reflecting a half-Christ is not reflecting Christ.

So love people enough to tell them the truth when it is needed, and do it the way He did: privately where possible, gently, and with the aim of restoring rather than winning.

Kindness without honesty is sentimentality. Honesty without kindness is cruelty. Christ was both, perfectly.

So reflect Jesus where you are. Do the good that is in front of you, carry somebody’s burden, and make the love of Christ visible today.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, You had compassion, You made room for the weak, You told the truth, You served, and You carried burdens that were not Yours. Make me like that. Show me the opportunities actually in front of me today, and give me the courage and generosity to take them. Keep me from trying to rescue everyone, and give me wisdom to know the difference between a burden I should help carry and a load someone must carry themselves. And keep my eyes on You, because I can only reflect what I am looking at. In Your name, amen.

Declaration

I reflect what I behold. I will look at Jesus, and do the good that is actually in front of me today.

Pastor Ras

All Nations Community Church

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