"You TOO can have Jeeeezzzussss as yer own Personal savior!"
Whatever.
You will either be mad at me (a heretic) or agree with me after you read this post, I'm pretty sure. Yes, by the way, before you get TOO mad at me, I do believe that Jesus saves us, but I also believe that there's a whole lot more too it than He and I.
I truly believe that we're way too self-interested. If you're a faithful reader, you probably have already noticed that. Yes, Jesus can forgive you of your sins, maybe He already has.
I'm sick of us thinking of him as our own personal commodity, like a swiffer savior or a virus scan. Ooooh, I'm feeling bad - run the Jesus program so I can feel better about myself.
When we think of Jesus as our "own personal savior", we are the making our own lives of the utmost importance. We go to church with the mindset, "What's in it for me?" And, when WE win anyone to Christ with that attitude, it becomes perpetuated. "FEED ME. Sometimes you just need to be fed." Bull-plop. We build churches that are shopping malls of spirituality. As Brian McLaren says, we gather out of "mutual self-interest". They body is not here to serve itself (I just got a wonderful image of that which I will post later, stay tuned).
McLaren, whom I just mentioned, has a FANTASMIC book called "A Generous Orthodoxy" which deals with many of the thoughts that I've been having lately. I can't believe I let it sit on my shelf for as long as it has.
He talks about the difference in Universalist (e.g. everybody gets to heaven) vs. Exclusivist (e.g. only the saved get to heaven) religions and how Christ didn't come to prolong either of those views. Instead, Jesus came to give everybody a fair crack at meeting God someday - whether greek or jew, rich or poor, gay or straight. "Those who want to become Christians, " he says, "we welcome. Those who don't, we continue to love and serve." And I'd add, that we actively engage. Actively find out what their needs are and actively try to meet them. Instead of waiting for the day when all of the "sinners" come to the church not act, I don't know, like Christ and go serve them . . . . YES, prostitutes, drug addicts, homosexuals, gossipers, liars, the jealous, the proud, the self-righteous and all.
If we continue promote the idea that benefits are for the "saved", disaster is for the "unsaved", we're promoting the concept of "every man for himself". It's easy, then, not to care because a) you're already saved (e.g. nothing to worry about) or b) you could lose your salvation hanging out with sinners (e.g. to which I say get back to examining where you REALLY are.). McLaren's missional model says that the Gospel brings, get this, benefits to ALL. The nonadherants, as he calls them, benefit by the body's giving, the body benefits, because, apparently, scriptures say that it's actually better to GIVE than to receive (do you remember reading that?).
You're mission is NOT to figure out who deserves heaven. You're role is not judge. What is the Christian to do? Worship (e.g. not sing songs, but prove your love for God), take your blessings and bless others, not in spite of, but because of race, creed, sexual orientation, chemical dependancies.
If we look at how we've taken Jesus Christ and molded Him to our own image, and if we could, just ONCE, compare that to the real Christ, I honestly believe that we would be in for a horrible surprise. "Feed my sheep." he said. "Preach the Gospel!" He said. "Do to others as you would have them do to you." He said. We're missing something very important when we ascribe to what God told Abraham when they covenanted ("I will bless you and make you a great nation"). There's more to it. God says, " I will bless you and I will make you a blessing to others. I will make your name and nation great and through you all nations will be blessed."
Tell me again why we have so much when others have so little? God's blessed us beause we've been so enduringly faithful . . . seems to easy. AND, it seems premature to stop there.
Who do we really love?
Grace.
