Transformation is a key word. (thanks!) When the foundation is the True Foundation (Jesus Christ), we are truly transformed (sometimes more slowly than we would like, or in smaller steps - but then God knows how big of steps we can handle!) and the dreams (fruit?) come forth!

The other part of the dream that seems to be expressed here is to be seen by the “world” as a positive rather than (almost always) as a negative.

I guess one question to ask ourselves is: Why does “the world” see/interpret our actions in a negative manner?

The second question would be: Can that be changed?

There are a couple of questions to mull for a while!

I would wholeheartedly agree that the change that we desire and seek doesn’t come because we want to do a bunch of nice things for people. It comes from a radical transformation. The transformation doesn’t come as a “we have to accomplish all these goals and make everything better” epiphany. That hardly sounds like an epiphany. It comes when we realize that the things that we held most dear, the things that drive our day to day life, are misguided. Money, power, prestige, security, and being well-liked aren’t bad things, but if we make them the focus, they become something that they were never meant to be.

“We say that we want love and that we want peace, but we do not realize these are not the destinations… they are the way.” I wrote those words because I believe they are true. You can’t “have” or possess love. Same with peace. They aren’t things that we can possess inside of us. They are the way in which we were meant to live. They don’t become the end result of the relationship, they become the space in which the relationship operates. They become (to use Paul Tillich’s descriptor for God), the “Ground of Being” in the relationship. They become the why and the how of the connection that exists between two people, a community of people, the world at large. That’s the dream. The dream is not doing the right stuff, or having the right stuff. It’s seeing things differently, it’s being grounded differently. It’s love and peace transformed back into what they were meant to be.

A Christian is a sinner who has been redeemed by God through belief in Jesus, the Son of God, who then dedicates his/her life to living it in a manner that proclaims God’s love and redemption for all. Because of living that life, a Christian - a follower of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God - is known for these things….