The Mark

By Dave Smith

I walked across the parking lot. I wasn”t sure why I was there. But God was working in me. I had questions. I needed answers. Besides, I was new in town and mom said nice girls go to church.

A young man my age saw me. He stopped and introduced himself. He walked with me into the singles Bible study. I was nervous. The memory of Jim Jones and the mass suicides at Guyana bothered me.

We sat down in a circle and began to study the book of John. I understood very little. But this group was different than other church people I had met before. They wore the mark.

When the hour ended, the leader suggested we close in conversational prayer. I looked for the door””too late. People began praying. One young woman prayed very simply, thanking God for her parents. I was moved by how real this God was to her. I opened my eyes, hoping I would not be struck down.

It was 1981, and I had just walked into East 91st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. I was lost. But I knew something was missing. The young man was Dean McDonald. God used his kindness and quiet witness. The leader was Tony Twist. He baptized me. The young woman was Nancy Palmer. I married her.

God used three very different people to change my life. But they shared one thing in common: the mark””love””for God, for one another, and for outsiders.

Known by the Mark

When will the church in North America be known for the mark? When will surveys reveal the word love as the one associated with Christians, rather than judgmental or anti-homosexual? When will we live as if we know our ministries profit us nothing without love? When will we love as if it is the greatest commandment?

Behind the greatest commandment to love God and people stands a greater truth: God loves us. “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10). This love is more than past accomplishment. It is an attribute of God (1 John 4: 16). It is the love with which he loves us even now, the love poured into the heart of a Christian by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5).

It is powerful, dynamic, transforming; a love God longs to release into our lives. So where do we start? How do we bear, how do we wear, the mark?

Wearing the Mark

Surrender. We love him with the totality of our being, heart, soul, mind, and strength. In view of his mercy, we offer ourselves as living sacrifices, emotionally, mentally, physically. But what do we do when life gets hard? What do we do when God allows trials and troubles, setbacks and suffering? Surrender.

It is here that our love for God can be holy, set apart, a cut above. It is here that we can display the mark of a Christian. Everyone suffers. In some way, at some time, in some place we will suffer. The question is, “How will we be different than the billions of other people who suffer?” How will we love God in the midst of our pain? How then shall we love?

Surrender. We see it in Abraham, with his knife poised over his son Isaac. We find it in Moses, forbidden to enter the promised land. We feel it in Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, refusing to worship the image of gold. For most of us, daily surrender will not be so dramatic. But it is no less important. How do we recklessly throw ourselves into the will of God?

Trust. We have to believe God is all-wise, he knows what he is doing; that he is all-powerful, his purposes cannot be stopped; that he is all-good, he has our best in mind. So how do we learn to say with Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him”?

Know. It is tough to trust someone you don”t know. Jesus said, “This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). We come to know God as we reflect on his creation, study his Word, remember his faithfulness, interact with believers, pray without ceasing, and experience his presence.

We return again and again to the cross. We cling to the historical, objective, tangible reality of Jesus” death and resurrection for us. We know God loves us. And we know that “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth . . . will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38, 39).

I wrestle with God over Nancy”s multiple sclerosis. And then I surrender. And she gets worse. And I wrestle again. Sometimes I just keep moving forward because as Peter confessed, where else am I going to go? Jesus has the words of eternal life. But in the midst of it, I am learning that God”s grace is sufficient for me. In the midst of it, I keep coming back to Jesus, a risen Lord with his own marks, upon whom I cast my anger and from whom I seek forgiveness and strength. And he is teaching me to bear the mark of a God-lover, to say with Job, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised” (Job 1:21).

The mark. Love God. Love people. In the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus challenges us to love our neighbor. We are to do good to all people, but especially to those who belong to the family of believers. So where do we begin?

Demonstrating the Mark

One day I was out mowing my lawn. The mower quit, overwhelmed by the rainforest I called my front yard. I went inside and called the repair shop. They couldn”t fix it for three weeks. So I went across the street to my Christian neighbor. He went to my church. I had seen him out mowing earlier. I told him what happened. I asked if I could borrow his mower. He said, “Well no, I just cleaned it, and I don”t want to get grass on it.” He didn”t want to get grass on his lawn mower? I didn”t know whether to laugh or cry. I walked away.

It got worse. I came to the next house. A Christian leader in a nationally known ministry lived there. He is proud and unfriendly. I kept walking. The next house was home to a young Christian couple. She was stingy. Charged you for everything. Piece of bread? $3.00 Cup of flour? $4.00. Watch your kid for 10 minutes? $5.00. I kept walking.

I arrived at the house of my pagan friend Mark. He was the one who tried to entice me to play in a charity golf tournament by telling me the Hooters girls would be there. One of the most generous people I ever met. Would give you anything, no questions asked. He lent me his mower.

As I pushed it home I wondered, what happened? What happened to the generous church of Acts 2? Why do too many Christians look more like Ananias and Sapphira than Barnabas? Why does the average American Christian give little more than the average non-Christian? What exactly are we worshiping?

How should Christians love one another? Be radically generous. The early church had a radical attitude toward their possessions: no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. This radical attitude led to radical action. They gave generously to needy brothers and sisters.

We see this in times of crisis like Hurricane Katrina, when believers give time, talents, and treasures to help hurting brothers and sisters. Our mark for one another not only honors God and builds unity, it is a living apologetic to those who do not know Jesus. Jesus said people would know we are his disciples by how we love one another. He prayed that we would be one so the world would believe that the Father sent the Son and has loved us, even as he has loved Jesus. There is power in the mark.

Compelled by the Mark

Have you seen March of the Penguins? The emperor penguins go to sacrificial extremes to reproduce. As I watched the film, I remembered the salmon. Born in a freshwater stream, they live most of their lives in the ocean. When it is time to reproduce, they return to the headwaters of their freshwater stream. No matter the distance, they fight their way back. There they prepare for the battle ahead. Appetites decrease, throats narrow, stomachs shrink.

By the time they begin swimming upstream, they are incapable of receiving food and the desire to eat leaves entirely. And so they swim, overcoming rapids, leaping waterfalls, avoiding nets. Many die, others make it, swimming some 2,000 miles, driven on by a force compelling them to reproduce.

It is God”s love that compelled Paul to reproduce himself spiritually. It is this love that Jesus modeled when he sought after Zaccheus, declaring that the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost. Jesus sends us. We must wear the mark, learning to see people as treasures, lost, broken, but treasures nevertheless.

In his book, What”s So Amazing About Grace?, Philip Yancey poses the question. “Why is it the lost were attracted to Jesus and the self-righteous repulsed, but today too many churches attract the self-righteous and repulse the lost?” Could it be that we have forgotten that every person is a treasure, made in the image of God, for whom Jesus died?

Too many Christians have lost their way. They have forgotten that unbelievers are not the enemy. The god of this world has blinded their eyes. As people of the mark, we seek after outsiders. We pray, listen, eat, share, serve, and hope.

A few years ago our family served at a Joni Eareckson Tada camp for families with disabilities. I was the minister of the week and had just finished welcoming our campers. As we dismissed, someone came running in and told us that an autistic boy had slipped away from his group. He was a runner and had taken off into the woods.

This was frightening, as there had been heavy rain and the rivers were rising. Further, his dad was not a Christian, did not want to be there, and came only to appease his Christian wife.

People scattered to search in all directions. I took off running up a trail that would look inviting to an eight-year-old. After about 10 minutes I came to the top of a hill. There he stood, playing in a stream. I took his hand and together we ran back down the trail.

As I burst into camp I began shouting, “I found him. He”s here! He”s safe!” I took him to his mom who broke down crying. We rejoiced, thanking God, hugging one another and welcoming back our autistic prodigal.

I still smile through watery eyes when I remember that scene. What a celebration! And what a picture of a people of the mark, loving God, loving one another, and loving wandering prodigals.

Dave Smith is professor of church planting at Ozark Christian College, Joplin, Missouri.