Jesus’ Call: “Come and Die… and find true life in forsaking everything…”
Our Culture’s Call: “Come and Get… and find Health, Wealth… whatever your heart lusts for!”
Did Christ call you to the path of your wildest dreams coming true?
Did Christ call you to the path of health and wealth and romance?
These are the things we dream of, right?
If he wanted to attract a lot of people, you would have thought THIS is what he would have offered, right?
But instead he say’s these words: “If you want to follow me, deny yourself… take up your cross, and follow me…whosoever does not hate his own life cannot be my disciple.”
I think one of the reasons this sounds so foreign to us is because it goes against our cultural norms (individualism, consumerism, materialism…)
In fact, I think when most of us come to Christ in this culture, it is BECAUSE OF Radical Self-Interest…
We don’t come to die, we come to live!
Some of us come to God to get hope for our Eternal Destination…
We look at eternity: Heaven & Hell… which one sounds better?
Some of us want a better life now… Maybe it’s the false health and wealth gospel OR maybe you are looking for Freedom from the brokenness we’ve experienced when we couldn’t help ourselves… addictions, sorrows, things that had been done against us… and we believe Christian Morality will help us achieve freedom from those things…
Some of us want to Make a Difference in the world, and Christianity is the perfect vehicle to accomplish our activist plans…
Some of us just grew up in it and don’t know any different, so we settle into a version of Christianity that fits us because we know there is some truth in there. So we find a church that reflects our values and settle in until something messes with us (offended at a person or teaching or they stop doing my favorite light show during the morning concert…), then we hop around until we find another church that fits our consumer hearts
The church has said for a long time, “Come get saved for your reasons, then join a church that fits your personality and desires (music-style, teaching-style, etc…), and then try to participate in mission as you can… That’s the key to the Christian life: you’ll be feeding some homeless people, behaving better, and know you’re going to heaven when you die”
The problem is we end up leading unfulfilling lives!
Mission becomes some dry activity squeezed into our free time…
Discipleship becomes a list of Meetings we attend and adding more Activities into our already saturated lives…
Freedom becomes a ball of guilt-ridden feelings we walk around under because we can’t break our sinful habits and we can’t seem to find the balance we seek, and we can’t do enough to make a dent in world poverty…
So… after a while, we find ourselves wanting to plop down Indian-style in the middle of the floor and give up, because our Fuel is Gone & we are Burnt Out and This Call is not all it was cracked up to be…
Jesus wants to free you today from that self-serving, unfulfilling, religious cycle!
Jesus wants to Break the chains of your the guilt, and consumerstic lie you’ve bought into today!
He wants to Set Loose the Pharisees and Sadducees and Zealots from their self-fulfilling dreams… the idols they have put their hope in… idols they are serving in the name of God
Many of us come to Christ to gain our lives…
1 Interesting Statements:
I love this, Vince! I was just thinking about teaching on the same topic. God is taking me through a long process of centering my life on him instead of on myself, for his praise. He is revealing how so many motives, even in ministry, have been so that I can live the most happy life possible. I am still the center of my own world. "Happiness" has been my god. I love Jesus' call because he says that when we try to live for ourselves we will die, but when we come and die for him, we will live. The order cannot be reversed. We cannot seek life and then die so that we will find it. The heart motives are essential, loving Jesus and His life above our own, sacrificing ourselves for him, simply because he is worthy, because we cannot help but worship. Not for our own good but for his. The beauty is that his grace gives us the most incredible gift of being caught up in the glory and beauty of the One we worship. We begin to see that the more we die to ourselves and live for God, the more we become a part of the divine exchange of life-giving love and unity with the Father. This is the most gracious thing I could ever imagine! Freakin' amazing.
Post a Comment