Saturday, February 27, 2010

From a distance

Christianity, from a distance, seems safe. Christ as preached by many in America seems tame, passive, and lifeless. Why have we deluded ourselves into pigeon-holing the Gospel to fit our desires?

It is so much easier to live life with Christ as your self-help coach or "co-pilot" than to let him reign as Lord over your life. When you spend only a few minutes a day in solitude with God, it is all too easy to let the other 23.95 hours be ruled by your own ego. I speak from experience.

What happens when Christ invades your life, though? What happens when you earnestly yearn for a deeper connection with God? What happens when you start immersing yourself in the Word of God?

You become like a seed. You fall into the soil of God's creative power, die, and are reborn as a beautiful, new plant. John captures it in his gospel: "verily I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit".

But why have we confused ourselves into thinking that this decision is merely a ONE-time decision made when we decide to follow Christ? The "moment" of salvation has become distorted in our contemporary context. We have placed so much emphasis on making a decision for Christ that we have failed to properly explain that it is a decision that must be made every single day.

Each day is a creation unto its own. It is not yesterday, neither is it the future. It is a precious gift. The Word also says "Choose you this day whom you shall serve". But we are content with believing that if we've made our one-time decision we've done what it takes to punch our salvation-ticket.

The "choose you this day" version of faith, though, is what we need to learn. We must, as a generation, immerse ourselves in the Word, giving Christ complete Lordship over our lives, praying for the faith to be able to follow where he leads. This is the kind of Christianity that is not safe. This is the kind of Christianity that requires much of me.

No, it requires all of me.

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