Love and Let Live

I enjoyed The Jesus Revolution movie. Would I have texted “don’t miss this” to forty-nine people, one at a time, if I hadn’t?

The movie was special to me for a couple of reasons: (1) I was in college in Costa Mesa, CA when barefooted long-haired hippies started packing out Chuck Smith’s small church, and (2) I saw the power of the Jesus movement at work even in the San Diego area.

My husband and I had the privilege of working at a church in La Mesa, CA where the pastor not only welcomed these young hippies, he prepared the congregation to accept them. In my mind, his wise advice boiled down to this: These kids are coming and they will not look like you, dress like you, or act the way you think they should. Your job is to accept them, and if they need correction, I will do it.

I’m happy to say, “We did, and he did.” Our church grew from about two hundred to the point of needing a new church which seated about fifteen hundred.

It hurts me to have Christians pick the movie apart. I got another text this morning trying to explain Lonnie Frisbee and his part in the historical Jesus Revolution. People who knew him well explain that he was born with a club foot, had a hard family life, and was abused sexually. He raised his hands and cried out to God, while high on drugs, “If you are real, prove it to me!” God heard his cry, saved him, and filled his heart with a great love to be used by God.

Considering how much time and money it takes to make a movie, let alone the challenges regarding distribution, I believe we should be thanking God for the overall impact of this production.

Let’s accept the grace of God---He chooses to use flawed people, ministers, and lay people alike. I’m not perfect, Are you? OK then, let’s LOVE as advised in I Peter 4:8, ESV: Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

And, let’s LET LIVE as further advised in I Peter 4:10-11, ESV: As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies---in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

I never met Lonnie, but from the movie, I believe that’s the way he lived his life. Peter’s spiritual advice still rings true, so let’s be doers of the word and not hearers only.