WARNING PREACHY…
If truth be told, we really don’t like Jesus all that much - even us Christians. Well, that is unless you only consider a
Jesus who is your buddy, who winks at your life-style choices, and is a pansy. The problem we have is that either we really
do not know who Jesus really is OR we are lying to ourselves.
·
The Jesus who is lived a very human life of
faith in a faithless world, and he called people to follow him as he led the
way through it and showed them the way to God. [1]
·
The Jesus who is was brave enough to speak the
truth to a people who rejected Him in order to show them the way to God. [2]
·
The Jesus who is was selfless enough to go the
cross to save us from our sins and open up our way to God.[3]
Still, we don’t like the Jesus who is very much, because
despite all the strength He displayed, to show us the way to God, He demands
that we give up our right to ourselves and follow Him daily. (Matt. 26:21-27)[4] And this goes against every selfish fiber of
our beings.
If you don’t believe that you are a selfish bugger, you
need only to get married and have children OR get cut off in traffic and feel
the over reactive angst of personal offense.
But many of us will deny the truth and continue on with the image of
Jesus that we have created in our minds.
I believe we naturally do this because of our inner narcissist.
But one day, if we are honest with ourselves, we will
recognize that if a man actually went to the cross to pay the price of our sins,
and really resurrected from the dead, we might get past our own desire to live
for ourselves and repent in order to follow Him. And that is the hard part, to lay down our
lives for others just as Jesus laid down His life for us. To call our sins “sin”, to commit spiritual
suicide, and to pick up our own cross daily and follow Him, is most likely the
hardest thing we will ever be called on to do, because such an act has a demand
upon us that is not for our own benefit, but for the benefit the other.
And if there is the slightest chance that a dead man raised
back to life after having been dead[5]
for a few days, shouldn’t you at the very least consider the possibility that
He is alive in the spiritual world and is calling to you?
But if truth be told, most people really don’t like the Jesus
who actually is all that much.[6]
No comments:
Post a Comment