Cards on the table time: I love to see Christians doing the word.

It all comes from the way I came to know the Lord. After I prayed the sinner’s prayer, I turned to the person who led me to the Lord and said, “Now what do I do?” To which the person responded, “Nothing, man. That’s the great thing–you don’t need to do anything.”

Well, yes, that’s true. Saved by faith and not by works–check. But that’s not what I was asking.

What I was asking was, “Now that the living God has made His home inside of me, does He want to, you know, do anything in there?”

So sanctification–growing comprehensively in the likeness of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit–is always high on my list of Christian Stuff I Like To Talk About And Do.

That’s why I was interested to hear about Christian speaker and teacher Joyce Meyer’s new initiative, The Love Revolution.

Based on one of my favorite verses, Hebrews 10:24–“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds”–The Love Revolution leaps out of the gate with what I consider a truly great manifesto:

I take up compassion and surrender my excuses.
I stand against injustice
and commit to live out simple acts of God’s love.
I refuse to do nothing. This is my resolve.
I AM THE LOVE REVOLUTION.

So far so good. (And they even do some really nice things with the site, like a “Revolution Roll Call”, where they list who’s joined and from where, that kind of thing.)

But where my love for The Love Revolution grew a bit cold was in the implementation, i.e., what are these simple acts of God’s love that we will resolve to do as we refuse to do nothing?

The Love Revolution Field Guide commends the following “stands against injustice”:

• Return your grocery cart.
• Be nice to a telemarketer.
• Chase down a neighbor’s pet and put it back in their yard.
• Let someone else have the last sale item.
• Refold or rehang the clothes in a store.

Hm.

Now, to be fair, in the list of 100 injustice-killers there are some I genuinely like:

• Befriend someone outside your usual group.
• Adopt a child.
• Forgive a loan.
• Make amends with family members.
• Visit someone in the hospital.

And maybe we celebrate the effort and say, “Look, you got to mix some easy ones in with some hard ones. After all, you can’t adopt a baby every day.” (Don’t tell that to W.C. Martin, though.)

On the other hand, though, it’s worth noting what makes the second list so much more powerful than the first:

It’s biblical.

That is, every item on that list can be tied to a particular command of scripture.

So I commend Joyce Meyer for the manifesto and for getting Christians to consider that God may want to do something inside that new home of His known as YOU.

But my alternative proposal is to truly make The Love Revolution’s manifesto ring true by calling Christians to simply carry out the commands of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit–not in an effort to earn salvation, of course, but rather in a recognition that this is the kind of stuff that the Holy Spirit yearns to equip us to do so that the character of our Father might be revealed.

Jesus’ list is even better than Joyce’s. Here are some of the injustice-killers he commends us to undertake (from J.S. McConnell’s list):

• Cleanse first that which is within (Matthew 23:26)
• Tell…how great things the Lord has done for thee (Mark 5:19)
• Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men who wait for their Lord (Luke 12:35-36)
• When thou makest a dinner…call not thy friends, nor thy brethren…but…call the poor (Luke 14:12-13)
• Resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. (Matthew 5:39-41)

There’s E in them thar P’s.