Last night Kristina and I were watching the movie Pretty Woman. Some may not like that movie but to me it is just a precious, timeless, cheesy love story. There is a scene where Julia Roberts and Richard Gere are going to the opera and Julia Roberts comes out of the bedroom in a beautiful red ball gown and white gloves up to her elbows. Her hair is curled and pulled back and she looks breathtaking. Richard Gere's character pulls out a square box and places a beautiful ruby and diamond necklace around her neck. She asks him how much something like that costs and his reply is "a quarter of a million dollars."
I looked at Kristina and said "Isn't it funny how saying a quarter of a million dollars seems like an exuberant amount of money, but saying $250,000 doesn't seem to be as much?" She sits there for a minute and replies "You're right. Just like if someone told me they paid $250,000 for their house I would think 'man that's a nice, big house' but if someone told me they paid a quarter of a million dollars for their house I would think 'they live in a mansion!'" It's all in the words you use!
Kristina has a Myspace page and as my motherly duty entails me I check her Myspace page and account quite frequently and while I'm on there I look at who her Myspace friends are and what their pages are about. I stumbled across a young girl's page yesterday whose "about me" section was full of obscenities and I sat shaking my head, but then at the very bottom of her paragraph she made the statement that she was a Christian. Not to judge the young girl but the fruits of her "about me" does not reflect a Christian. So, is she also saying "a quarter of a million dollars" because it sounds better?
This has really got me thinking. I'm wondering how many people are truly Christians and how many people say they are because "it sounds good" or "it's the in thing"? What do people see when they look at me or talk to me? Do they think "Wow, she's a Godly woman who loves the Lord?" or do they think "There's one of those people who say they're a Christian but you just never know?" Am I $250,000 or am I a quarter of a million dollars?
"Jesus told him, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.'" John 14:6 (NLT). Notice that Jesus didn't add anything to that. He didn't say that He is the way, the truth and the life and a gold ring. He didn't add frills or rainbows and fairy dust. There is a big ole period there. He said I am the way, the truth and the life and no one can come to the Father except through me! I think maybe we need to accept Him for what He is and say exactly what we are and where we stand and stop fluffing our words so that we think He sounds better. And, besides that, why in the world do we even want to make Him sound better? How much better can He get? The unconditional love! The grace, mercy, forgiveness! What else is there?
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