Want attitude? Here’s attitude:

What have I ever done
That was worth even one
Of the pleasures I know?
What did I ever do
That was worth loving you
For the kindness you’ve shown?
 
Lord, help me Jesus,
I’ve wasted it so, help me Jesus,
I know what I am.
Now that I know
That I needed you so, help me Jesus,
My soul’s in your hand. – Kris Kristofferson

The title of this song says it all: “Why me, Lord?” Why did you pick me to be a recipient of you grace over anyone else? I am so undeserving.

When you focus on the similarities you have with the people around you, you end up with the right attitude about yourself, about others, and about God’s grace. Actually when you are truly overwhelmed with God’s grace, as we all should be all the time, you have absolutely nothing to say about anyone else except to tell your story, and want to hear theirs.

Like Marti says, “We all like to be treated with dignity. We all like to have fun. We all like to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. These are universal values shared by everyone, and therefore can be foundations from which to begin open-ended questions in the discovery of one another – an opportunity to be “personality journalists” drawing out one another’s true stories of how we make a difference in other’s lives.

“When entering a relationship from the place of similarities, even the conflicts that emerge can be ways of connecting and embracing what makes us different. Respecting one another’s differences allows for us to be voices of reconciliation because it is in the contrast of us as Christians who are the greatest of sinners (and we know it) to Christ’s glorious saving grace where the power of the Spirit can be found to bring us all to him.”

Being born again doesn’t make you better; it makes you grateful. It doesn’t put you on another level; it puts you in a state of astonishment that this would happen to you. You are certainly no more deserving of God’s grace than the next guy. And when you realize that Christ died for everybody, not just for an elite group, then you want to get down and dirty with everyone and tell them the good news.

Want attitude? Here’s attitude…

“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not” – Paul (Romans 7:18).

“It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all” – Paul (1 Timothy 1:15).