Jesus is not your homie...
by Roberto Esponja on Monday, December 26, 2011 at 2:43am ·
By now, you know my stance in regard to religion, the American church as an institution, and that I still believe in Jesus as being exactly what he claimed. So, keep that in mind when I tell you this, once more.
The Jesus we see in the Bible was very intentional in being both absolute and divisive in His mission and in his statements. ( See: Matthew 12:30, John 14:6, Revelation 3:15-16, Matthew 10:34, and tons of others really) I honestly don't see that the option to be merely alright with Jesus was an option he left open for us. In meeting him, if we consider His claims at all, we are forced into an uncomfortable level of self introspection about our insufficiency to live upright lives, and consideration of his sacrafice on our behalf to make right once more the relationship between a loving creator and a rebellious creation. Consequently we can take only one of two roads in continuing forward from that point, either with or without him.
We can not consider Jesus and his teachings while still claiming that he was a "good teacher" or anything less than he claimed of himself. It is unfair and self deceptive, for in reality, it makes either Jesus, or those making such claims, to be a liar.
I would in fact go so far as to say, that anyone (believer or not) who says they don't currently or haven't in the past, taken issue with Jesus, (His teachings and their sense of fairness and/or the difficulty in implimenting those lessons in their own lives) has actually considered any of these things all that seriously. Or perhaps they just aren't being honest with themselves, to avoid dealing with their own place in relation to him, in order to do less than they know he asks. In fear of being wrong, perhaps these claims are issued as a means of securing (atleast in their own minds) some sort of eternal "fire insurance".
This is just my speculation of course, but it stems from my observations that most of the time the effort of trying to maintain such a casual relationship with God, is most often simply a means to validate an acceptance of only those teachings which agree with our own feelings and conclusions about how the the world should be, while reserving the right to exclude those teachings which do not. Whatever the case may be it has never been used to my knowledge, by anyone that sought more than self gratification while remaining unchanged.
Unfortunately, it rarely noted that by doing so, we are in effect elevating ourselves as equals to God, and this is a very dangerous proposition indeed!
In saying all of this, I'm certainly not making judgement about anyone's salvation. That is not my call to make, nor would I want to. I am also not in the business of selling God, he will contact you himself should he choose to do so.
I am simply attempting to reconcile the words of people with those of Christ. I realize that it is currently a popular, but rather historically unoriginal, notion to claim that one should be able to live their "truth", but how can we expect to improve our own spiritual well being by being preoccupied by our truth, without even an attempt to reconcile it with the truth.
All of that said, I will ask one more indulgence in rleation to all of this. Consider the lesson of Peter, who faultered in his walk on water when he removed the focus of his vision from Christ, and redirected his consideration to the circumstances surrounding him.
We would be wise to learn from this lesson, before removing our vision from the perfection of Christ, and Christ alone, when considering him. Redirecting our focus to the imperfections of those, who like us fail from time to time, would do little more than cloud our judgement, if not far worse, for while the goal of the believer is Christ, this does not change the shortcomings inherent to their humanity.
We can not use our own perceptions regarding the unwillingness of others in following Christ as their example, as a valid justification for our own failure to do the same. In doing so, we merely equalize our positions, and not only do we not escape our own condemnation for such shortcomings, but to the contrary, we further validate and ensure it.
To the point, Jesus, in his own teachings states his preference for those that would either have the guts to boldly reject him, or the heart to boldly profess him and does so without room for interpretation.
He states quite clearly that the option to do neither is not an option available to us at all.
d(-_-)b
