Jesus: All or Nothing

My wife and I have a chocolate lab, Hazel. She’s about 8 months old or so. Basically, Hazel is 60lbs of brute force. I’ve learned something about this mammoth beast over the past few months. Hazel is either sleeping (all day) or running around wild like I fed her speed for breakfast. But, that’s one thing I can appreciate about her, she’s all or nothing. She is either comatose or crazy. There is no in between with her. Hazel doesn’t have a middle ground. I was thinking about this the other day when I came across one of Jesus’ teachings about those who try to follow him from the middle ground.

In Mark 8:34-38, Jesus is speaking to a crowd that was tagging along with him. This was not some new phenomenon in the life of Jesus. He always had people following him. The interesting thing about Jesus is any time he had a large group of people following him, he would always call them out about the cost and commitment it takes TO follow him. He didn’t want people to believe that they could half-heartedly follow him. He didn’t want people to think they could follow him from the middle ground or from a distance. The crowd was following him because he was doing amazing things. He was healing people, he was casting out demons, he was feeding the 5 thousand and people couldn’t get enough of the amazing. They saw him as a performer. To them, Jesus was an anomaly, an entertainer. In times like this, Jesus usually stops and says something like "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me”. And “whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it”. Jesus is saying that if you want to save your life, you have to deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow him. It’s as simple as that. Essentially, he is telling the crowd, you think you’re following me but you’re really not. If you really want to follow me, loose your life to me and my cause. Give your life to me and my mission and stop acting like you’re following me. The crowd was lying to themselves. In fact, there are several times in the Gospel’s where some in the crowd stop following Jesus because of the seriousness of his call. You see with Jesus there is no middle ground, with Jesus it’s all or nothing.

So the message is clear. We need to take a lesson from my dog, Hazel. We need to stop living our lives in the middle ground and go all in for Jesus. The thing about the middle ground is that it’s a miserable existence. I know this to be true from my own experience. The reason why it’s so miserable is it’s not a part of God’s plan for us. He didn’t create us for that type of dualism in our lives. He didn't create us to say one thing and do another. We were created to follow him and live for his mission on the earth. We were created to give our lives to the One who gave his life for us. True belief in God demands faith and obedience. To divorce these two concepts is to have no belief at all. We want a Jesus that demands nothing from us. We want a Savior that saves us from Hell but who doesn’t command us to give up everything to follow Him. This is the type of Jesus we’ve created. This is the type of Jesus that our Church's are preaching. But, this isn’t the Jesus revealed to us in Scripture, which is where Jesus is revealed. It’s a made up form of Jesus which we’ve created in our own image. It’s a fairy tale Jesus.

Yet, there is hope for the middle ground dwellers. You can allow God to fill you (daily) with His Spirit and empower you to be all in for Him and for His Kingdom. You can ask God right now to set you free from yourself and give you the grace to get out of the middle ground. The truth of the matter is simple. It’s all or nothing with Jesus. We need to stop lying to ourselves. Don’t treat Jesus like an entertainer, a performer an anomaly. Don't say, "I believe in Jesus, I just don't want to live for Him. I just don’t want it to cost me anything". What kind of belief is that? It is no belief at all. Jesus commands and deserves better from those who call themselves Christ-like. I'm not talking about perfection, I'm talking about continually progressing to look more and more like Jesus. My hope and prayer is that you will truly follow Jesus by living your life with everything that you are for Him and His mission.

BC

Re-Directed and Re-Focused

So...I haven't blogged in a while. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's been because life has been one acid storm after another for the past few months. Regardless, I'm here now and ready to work. I'm sure there are those of you, whose lives have not been the same since the last time I blogged. My sincerest apologies to all.

Over the past few months, I've decided to take the blog in a little bit different direction. We're still going to talk about the mission of the Church and it's relationship to culture. However, now I'm going to post Devotionals online that deal with the ministry and mission of the Church. Basically, the devotionals will consist of insights gleaned from Scripture that we can apply to our daily lives i.e. 'our mission within the mission of God'.

Seriously though, for those of you who are interested, this blog could be a great ministry to you, your family and maybe even your Church. I'm not naive. I know there's a ton of people out there who have given up on what they think the 'Church' is, the Bible and it's relativity to culture. Or perhaps you're just complacent and need someone/something to kick you in the pants from time to time. Well...I will gladly kick you in the pants. Hopefully this blog will challenge and encourage you in your relationship with Jesus.

So buckle up ladies and gentlemen...cause it's about to get crazy. Starting tomorrow...all this typing and thinking has made me hungry and tired.

Be sure to check back with me and we'll dig into the Bible and Culture together.

Peace,
BC