Living life the way Jesus intends is truly a counter cultural experience. One critic of the early church suggested that they were turning the whole world upside down (17:6), or what that really meant was "right side up". Living for Jesus is an alternative to the way most of the people in world live. Their way is killing them. Consume, indulge, protect, secure it all for yourselves; these drives clearly are not delivering on their promise. Have we ever been collectively more unhappy and more given to discontent? One author has suggested that we are one nation under therapy. But Jesus invites us to a whole different way of living. It is so attractive, and it is as attractive as it is counter-intuitive to our world's approach to life. But when it is put on display and we ponder it, I find the way of Christ difficult to dismiss or ignore.

A friend of mine recently died. He was only fifty four. About seven years ago, he abandoned his old way of life and took up the life of Jesus and believed on Him and began to follow. The results were dramatic. His approach to life changed. All who knew him acknowledged that he had changed. What brings a man in his mid forties to such life change? One could certainly attribute it to his mortality. He had a liver transplant about six years ago. As he headed for the transplant, he threw inhibition to the wind and he embraced Christ. But I cannot help but think that he was attracted to Christ by seeing that there was another way to live.

He had a painting business and needed a vehicle. He heard that the church where his wife was attending needed to sell an old van. The van had had a number of miles put on it. The church sold it to him for what seemed like, at the time, a just price. The church van was converted into a rolling warehouse for paint supplies and would roll up to jobs and off load assets and away the painters would go. Soon after the rolling warehouse was mustered out into service for his paint company, the van blew up. Yes, no sooner had he bought it and started using it than the engine gave up the ghost. It was no small fix and he was out the money he had paid for the van. He was a little upset with the church. He was like other small business men who operate with a small margin. He was determined to approach the church and voice his displeasure. So he did. And so they responded. Amazing grace struck yet again! The ways of Christ showed brightly.

As the church contemplated what to do, they decided that the way of Christ involved grace and generosity. They gave Dale his money back...all of it. Dale was dumbfounded. Dumbfounded to be gang tackled by the beauty of the way the life of Jesus is lived out. Looking back now, it is not hard to see that it was grace that ran Dale down. Dale could not ultimately shake the gesture.

Six years after the liver transplant and drugs designed to keep his body from rejecting this vital organ (and drugs which push down your immune system), an infection lifted its ugly head, took over and took Dale's life. But Dale had seen Jesus, first in that interaction with the church over the van. Then Dale embraced Jesus by faith and began to live that life to which he had been called. Dale died with hope, having first seen the beauty of the way of Christ in the midst of the discouraging circumstance of his van blowing up. Indeed, amazing grace strikes again. Oh the seductive power of the beauty of this alternative way of life. There is another way to live. We've all been invited to The Way!

"I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father but by me." John 14:6