In today's culture we see many statements, quotes that fly around facebook attributed to different people. There is one in particular that I saw yesterday morning that said this:
"You can't hang out with negative people and expect to have a positive life" - Joel Olsteen
At first glance reading the quote above on my facebook, it would make sense and then I had to ask myself this question? Who did Christ hang out with ?
The bible tells us that Jesus was a friend of sinners, He was so because he engaged them, and he engaged them because He could see their hearts and He loved them and He loves you.
Is the ultimate goal tosecure our life here to be positive?? Or would it be to share the knowledge of Christ as your Lord and savior, the most positive news in the world, to the world.
The Pharisees at the time noticed who Jesus was hanging out with and pointed this out numerous times, an adulterous woman, a leper, entering the tomb of a dead man? Christ, loved them.
The next time you feel like the person you are hanging around with seems to be negative, perhaps you have a place there, a purpose to share the most positive message of all is that Christ is alive and loves each of us, that He died so that we may have an ongoing relationship with Him, that the creator of the universe knew this life would be hard and knew we would need Him. How dare we just say we can't hang out with negative people at the risk of not having a positive life? Really?
Should not our faith be so strong, and the news so positive that Christ resides in our hearts that hanging out with someone who is negative could not touch the fact of who we are nor effect the promise that our life is more than positive its eternal. Should not that light shine enough to effect the negativity of the people that we come into contact with?
