We’ve looked at the harmony of Reverence – a life of passion and promise and of adoring and exalting God. We’ve looked at the harmony of Authenticity – living a life that is real and genuine and filled with integrity. We’ve looked at the harmony of Encouragement – living in such a way that we turn people’s hearts toward Jesus, to the end that they will want to come to know Him as Lord and Savior.

This blog is about living a life that shows or proves that Jesus changes lives because He changed yours and lives in you. It’s perhaps the finest way to encourage the world around you! The world is lost and wandering – looking for something in which they can place their trust – looking for someone in whom they can find hope. The sad truth is that they will never find it without your help. They’ll find cheap imitations and dead-end promises: drugs, false religions, cult leaders. . . these are the more obvious dead-end pathways we all might think of. What about: bad habits? innocent pastimes? enjoyable amusements? No – no one can find real trust and real hope without Jesus, and they can’t find Jesus without you.

You are an ambassador for Christ in this world! You are His messenger. You are His hands, His feet, His eyes, and His voice on planet earth. That’s the ancient understanding we find as we dig deep into Christ’s teachings and the teachings of the apostles - a short, simple concept we learn from several places in God’s Word: people can truly see Jesus – but only in you.

Do you know who you really are? Really? Are you a combination of your mom and your dad? Are you a product of your environment? Are you a conglomeration of family, siblings, friends, co-workers, hopes and dreams and desires? Are you a bundle of concerns and frustrations and doubts? Where is your identity?

I have some important Scriptures for you to consider. All of these Scriptures tell you important things about your identity. . . check them out with me.

In John 13:35, Jesus says: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Jesus told us that the world will know who you are and who you belong to by the way you love others.

The Apostle Paul tells us this in Romans 13:8: “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law.” Paul explains that by loving one another and by loving the people of the world, we actually have fulfilled the Law of Moses and the Prophets. We’ve met their unattainable requirements – simply by loving the way Christ showed us how to love!

The Apostle John teaches us in 1 John 4:11-12: “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.” No one has ever seen God – but if we love one another, God lives in us – and that’s how people see God! The world can truly see Jesus – but only in you and me!

Check out Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Who do people see when they look at you? They should see Jesus; you no longer live – but Christ lives in you!

This is about being living proof in the world – and it’s about your legacy in the world. In other words – what do people see in you today, and what will people remember about you when you’re gone?

Some time back I went to a funeral, and the people who got up and spoke about the deceased said that this person knew Jesus and was in Heaven with Him right now. That’s pleasant, and it’s good news. However, there was really nothing else said. Oh, there was plenty said about leisure activities and hobbies and where this person lived – but there was nothing said about how this person’s life changed anyone else.

What do you hope people say about you right now? What do you hope they will say about you when you’re gone?

Actor George Clooney, in an interview back in 2000, said that “Most of the time I wake up and feel like I’ve somehow missed something. Sleep is something I actually have to make myself do – I don’t look forward to it.” Clooney usually gets up around 4:30 am. He says he wakes up feeling wired, ready to get to work. At the time of the interview Clooney was 39, but – by his own admission, people think he’s much older. “It cracks me up” he says. “You can see the years on my face,” he says. “I better slow it down or I’ll look like Miss Jane Pittman.”

Clooney’s feeling seems to be this: We only have so much time on this earth, and I’m going to spend mine working. His legacy, he hopes, will be good movies, though his father isn’t so sure. George says his father, “keeps getting on me about not having a family. He says, ‘Name one actor from the 1920s.’ Well you can’t – not really. Nobody remembers those guys.”

In 2000, George Clooney’s hope for a legacy was. . . good movies. In 2006, Clooney and his father, Nick Clooney, a political commentator and retired broadcast journalist, went to Darfur, Sudan to see the terrible living conditions there because of the war. They both came back changed men – men who are working to relieve the suffering of the Sudanese people. George Clooney has a new legacy he wants to leave behind. It powers his thinking, informs his decisions about roles he’ll accept, and gives new purpose to his day-to-day life.

For you and me – as Christ-followers – we need to identify our day-to-day existence with Jesus. . . because we no longer live, but He lives in us. Paul talked to us about living lives committed to Christ, and changing our agendas to fit Kingdom-building agendas. Turn to 1 Corinthians 7 to discover his teaching.

“Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. . . Nevertheless, each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. (1 Corinthians 7:8-9, 17)

Why would Paul give such a teaching? To keep us focused on the important things! Getting married and raising a family are honorable and pleasant – but they’re secondary to serving the Lord with your whole life. Paul says we can marry to keep from lusting – but it would be best if we remained single.

“I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs – how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world – how he can please his wife – and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world – how she can please her husband.” (1 Corinthians 7:32-34)

What Paul is telling us is that our time on earth is short – and the Kingdom-building opportunity we all have is very limited. Those who have a spouse should live as if they had none, and those who are in mourning should live as if they did not need to mourn, and those who are happy should live as if they were not happy, and those who buy something should live as if it were not theirs to keep, and those who use the things of the world should live without getting engrossed in the things of the world. For this world in its present form is passing away – and we have work to do! (paraphrased from 1 Corinthians 7:29-31.)

We are to be living proof of Christ in the world; when people see us and talk to us – they should see Jesus living in us.

Many of us know the stories and the history of World War II and Pearl Harbor Day – the “date which will live in infamy.”

But I want to relate a more inspiring story from that time: the story of Mitsuo Fuchida. Fuchida grew up loving his native Japan and hating the United States. Fuchida attended a military academy, joined Japan’s Naval Air Force, and by 1941, with 10,000 flying hours behind him, had established himself as the nation’s top pilot. When Japanese military leaders needed someone to command a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, they chose Fuchida.

Fuchida’s was the voice that sent his aircraft carrier the message “Tora! Tora! Tora!” (Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!) indicating the success of the surprise mission. Still, of the 70 officers who participated in the raid, he was the only one who returned alive.

He had another close call when he was shot down during the battle of Midway in 1942, but despite serious injuries, he survived again. By 1945 he had attained the position of the Imperial Navy’s Air Operations Officer. On August 6 he was eating breakfast in Nara, Japan, where the new military headquarters was under construction, when he heard about a bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

On the same day the nuclear bomb was dropped, an American POW named Jacob DeShazer felt moved by the Holy Spirit to pray for peace. DeShazer had been in captivity since 1942, when, as a member of Doolittle’s Raiders, he had dropped bombs near Tokyo and then was forced to parachute. DeShazer found his heart softened toward his Japanese captors. After being liberated, DeShazer wrote a widely distributed essay, “I Was a Prisoner of the Japanese,” detailing his experiences of capture, his conversion to Christ while in captivity, and his desire to receive forgiveness and be forgiving.

Fuchida – the Japanese soldier, and DeShazer – the American soldier, met in 1950. DeShazer had returned to Japan in 1948 as a Christian missionary. Fuchida had read DeShazer’s testimony, bought a Bible, and converted from Buddhism to Christianity. DeShazer welcomed the new convert Fuchida into his home. The two became friends.

DeShazer continued to plant churches throughout Japan, and Fuchida – the infamous Japanese leader of the attack on Pearl Harbor – became an evangelist, spreading Christ’s message of peace and forgiveness in his native country and throughout Asian-American communities.

Today, I have friends – Americans – who continue to share Christ in Japan. Mark and Stephanie Bartsch both speak Japanese fluently, and their two teenage sons are growing up in a culture far different than America – and all because God changed the lives of the Japanese soldier Fuchida and the American soldier DeShazer and used them for His own purposes – to open the doors of evangelism in the nation of our former enemies. The willingness of Fuchida and DeShazer to be used of God left a legacy far greater than anything they could have imagined or accomplished on their own. Now, Stephanie and Mark are continuing to share Christ in Japan, something that may not have been possible without Fuchida and DeShazer’s legacy.

For you and me – as Christ-followers – we need to identify our legacy, our bequest to the world. What will be your Kingdom-building, God-honoring, people-changing activities? Who will come to know Jesus Christ because you entered their life? Who will come to know Jesus Christ because you lived Jesus out in front of them?

For a number of years, the TV reality show “Jon and Kate plus 8” chronicled the day-to-day lives of Jon and Kate, their first-born daughter, and the septuplets who changed their lives and captured the hearts of America. Jon and Kate’s legacy was seemingly going to be that of showing the world that, despite troubles and busy schedules, you can still be a super-mom and a super-dad. Now – with Jon and Kate going through a nasty divorce, and both of them in the limelight with much-sensationalized extra-marital affairs – their legacy now seems to be nothing more than how embarrassing they can look on Entertainment Tonight and in tabloids like People and Us and National Enquirer.

There’s an old cliché that says: “It takes a lifetime to build a reputation, and only an instant to destroy it.” We might have a more dramatic saying to be concerned about: “People can truly see Jesus – but only in you.”

If they can’t see Jesus in you – then there are a lot of our friends and family who will miss out on Heaven! We don’t want it to be said of us: “They could have led people to faith in Christ, but they never applied themselves.” You don’t want your legacy to be “He loved Jesus – and he’s in Heaven right now – but that’s all I can really say about him.” What a waste of breath; what a waste of time.

You want people to say: “Without him,” or “Without her, I wouldn’t know Jesus as my Lord and Savior. He/She led me to find faith in Jesus.”

I know everyone wants instructions on how. Everyone wants life application. Well – the life application is this: “People can truly see Jesus – but only in you.” How you’re going to get that done is between you and Jesus. I could tell you to pray more or read the Bible more or have a daily quiet time – but that’s only “window dressing.” It boils down to how you love.

Jesus teaches us: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35) You’ve got to love the way Jesus loved. That’s easier said than done – but that’s the assignment from Jesus!

Paul tells us: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” (Colossians 3:12-14)

We’ve got to learn to love. We’ve got to be clothed with compassion. We’ve got to put on kindness and humility and patience. It takes daily effort to love like Jesus loved! It’s an ongoing process – a continual course of growing and changing and becoming like Jesus, Himself. It’s living that way on purpose and out in the open where everyone can watch you!

The world is lost and wandering – looking for something in which they can place their trust and hope. They will never find it – not without your help!

You are an ambassador for Jesus! You are His messenger. You are an eyewitness to what Jesus does in a person’s life. More importantly, you are the evidence – the verification – the corroboration – that Christ changes lives. You are the living proof that Jesus is alive!

Your life-application – your take-away – your assignment – your challenge. . . is to love one another, the way Jesus first loved you. People truly can see Jesus – but only in you.