Whose Lord is it, Anyway?

"You TOO can have Jeeeezzzussss as yer own Personal savior!"

Whatever . . . OK, it's not that I don't believe it - I just think it's outrageously self-centered for a disciple of the most selfless man that ever walked the planet.

You will either be mad at me (a heretic) or agree with me after you read this post, I'm pretty sure.

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. We build churches that are shopping malls of spirituality. We have some, "FEED ME, FEED ME" concept. 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 between Universalist (everybody gets rewarded) and Exclusivist (only the select get rewarded) views. Jesus, I think, doesn't subscribe to either. What we do as Christians is focus on what happens after we die. Yeah, it's important. Notably, its importance increases in importance as your self-interest increases. Jesus' messsage was universalist in that it was for, "the whosoever." Imagine that, God wants his freedom available to all - not just those that happen to swing by the local corps on a sunday morning. Imagine if we welcomed those that wanted to be Christians and still continued to serve those who didn't.

Now we may have to go find them.

We have to start believing that it is better to give than to receive. Isn't that in the Bible somewhere? Did someone leave that out? What's intereting is that we have relationship and power from the creator of the universe and we're completely content to hoard it for ourselves. At least if we keep it, we know where we're going. If anyone else wants in, they have to come find us.

Jesus is Lord of all - sinner and saved both. He is Lord of the druggies. Lord of the homosexuals. Lord of the gossipers. Lord of the Liars. Ultimately, He will have some sway over their lives. Someday, every knee is gonna bow and confess . . . what? He's also Lord of those who won't/don't know how to share that love with others.

There's a lot more to Christianity than our own personal salvation. It's a nice perk. But that's really not what it's about. It's about being blessed, to bless others. Its about universally spreading the blessings of God that we receive with EVERYONE.

Lets stop the greed and REALLY share the love.

Grace