Light Love
By: Brian Howard
The Barn Roastery, a coffee shop in Berlin, has
made headlines for their two page treatise on
coffee guidelines. Among other things, they prohibit cream,
sugar, music, computers, cellphones, and strollers in their establishment. Everyone
agrees the coffee is delicious, but some folks have wished the baristas were a bit more flexible.
Here’s the thing, If a coffee house can have such extensive guidelines, then we should expect the
Christian life might also have some extensive guidelines. If coffee can have rules, then certainly Christ
can have rules, too. Unlike the coffeehouse in Berlin, these are rules that lead to freedom rather than
limitation.
In Ephesians 4:22, Christians are commanded to “put off your old self. . .be renewed. . .put on the new
self, created after the likeness of God.” Paul then gives us three ingredients for this “new self” in Ephesians 5:1-2, 8.
First, “Be imitators of God, as beloved children” (5:1). Our Father in Heaven is our Father. The more
time we spend reading His letters to us (The Bible), calling Him up (in prayer) and visiting His house
(The Church), the more like Him we become. And yet, we’ll always be “only imitators, but always imitating,” as G.B.Wilson says. Don’t give up. We’ll always fall short, which is why this is called a Christian
walk instead of a Christian destination. The