UPSIDE-DOWN CHRISTIANITY
I tend to live life as if I am the action hero of this great epic that centers on me and my personal life. It’s all about me and my plans, my future, my family, my hopes, my dreams, my difficulties, my pains, my sicknesses, my church, my group, my community, etc. I know God. He’s in my life, but He’s not my life. I see Him once a week... most of the time. He’s one of many things in my life.
Church life or Christian community life is much the same. Most of the talk is about our church, our programs, our vision, our finances, our problems, our holiness, our spiritual growth, our youth group, our school, our capital campaign, our maintenance fund, etc. These are all good things for sure and need to be considered. But it is still focused on us and our wonderful life. It’s still the great self-centered epic that we have cleaned up a bit and covered over with religious trappings.
It’s not surprising that one of the most popular Christian books today is "Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential". The author is a pastor of a mega-church who says he only likes to preach about positive things. We of itching ears about OUR life, can’t get enough of that kind of talk. Bring it on pastor, we love it!
We even get converted with words like, "God has got a great plan for your life." That’s absolutely true, but it’s woefully incomplete. That keeps everything centered on me and my fantastic epic of a life. It’s been said that we are born selfish. There has even been a book written about "The Selfish Gene." Whether that is true or not, we were born in sin and it is easy to see self-centeredness in small children. The problem comes in when we never get over it and it lives on in us even after being "born again."
We recently celebrated Father’s Day. I’m willing to bet the least remembered and least appreciated Father on the planet was Our Father in heaven. I wonder how many sermons were preached about Him and gave thanks to Him. Wasn’t the day all about us wonderful fathers?
Jesus is the supposed subject of our Christianity but He tends to get lost in the shuffle. We seem to be mainly focused on us most of the time. You can go for decades without hearing much about Him. Even hearing His name mentioned is a rare event. If an alien dropped into our Christian circles from outer space, he would be hard pressed to figure out who was the leader of our band and what we’re all about. His top three guesses might be the pastor, the budget, the school, etc. It sure wouldn’t be Jesus.
I may hear Jesus say, "I never knew you."
We ask people if they know Jesus when we are evangelizing and that’s a good question. But again, the subject of that sentence is us! Me knowing Jesus. A better question to ask ourselves is: does Jesus know me? We might be surprised and shocked by the answer. There is a difference between a duty Christian and an alive Christian. A duty Christian is keeping the rules and wants to know how far he can go before he sins. His life is all about him and his great life. An alive Christian has put on Jesus Christ and his whole life is about magnifying Jesus. There is a real danger in sleep walking through Christianity keeping the rules. The danger is "I may not make the cut!" I may hear Jesus say, "I never knew you."
How can we tell if Jesus knows us? Easy! The bible says, "The Spirit himself gives witness with our spirit that we are children of God" (Ro 8:16). No witness? Then Jesus doesn’t know us! If we don’t know deep down inside us that we are without a doubt God’s child and have the peace that passes understanding about our status before Him - Look out! - He doesn’t know us! We better take steps to correct that condition pronto! We better take steps to make Him total King over all aspects of our lives both now and forever. Then the Holy Spirit will witness to us that Jesus knows us.
Other people in danger of hearing "I never knew you" are:
* Those who give intellectual agreement or assent to the gospel but not a total commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord of every aspect of life
(Mal 3:18; Jas 2:26; Mt 7:19-23)
* Those who do not profess their faith before others when necessary
(Lk 12:8-9)
* Those who are not fruitful for the Lord
(Mt 25: 28-30)
* Those who have no time for the Lord due to their busy schedules.
(Mt 24:37-39)
* Those who are nominal Christians.
(Mt 22:11-14)
* Those who don’t persevere in the faith
(Mt 24:46-51; Rev 2:10, 25-26; Mt 13: 40-43; Heb 10:28-31)
God is bigger than His book, the Bible. Genesis begins with the story about creation. The creator of creation had a lot going on before we showed up on the scene. We were born into the middle of His story! It’s all about Him! Our life only becomes significant as we find our place in His story. If we make our life all about us and not all about Jesus, we consign ourselves to total insignificance. If we concentrate our life on our 15 minutes of fame, we will surely be like the morning dew, here today and gone tomorrow (Ps 62:10). We will be lost in eternity forever and remembered no more by anyone.
It’s all about Jesus and His fame and renown!
Our lives were created to glorify God (1 Cor 10:31) and only have meaning as we submit them to the Holy Spirit to be used to magnify and glorify Jesus. Everything else is worthless and is going up in flames. It’s all about Jesus and His story. It’s all about His fame and His renown. We become important only as we loose ourselves in the unfolding of His kingdom on earth. Our job is to make Jesus famous on the planet earth by glorifying Him in all we do. Only then does this life of mine have any meaning.
Have you noticed in the bible when the apostle John on the island of Patmos caught a glimpse of the glorified Jesus, he fell down almost dead. The sight was terrifying in its awesomeness! That’s what it is going to be like for all of us when Jesus splits the skies and returns in glory. Does our vision of Jesus today excite even a miniscule amount of that holy awe and terror in us? Hardly. Jesus is more our mascot than our majestic King. The measure of our awe of Jesus (or lack of it) is a measure of how it’s all about us and not all about Jesus in our lives. It’s a measure of how upside-down is our Christianity.
Maybe we need to go on a year long fast from me, myself and I and go on a feast of magnifying, glorifying and exalting the Lord Jesus Christ in all we do. Maybe we need to forget about all our plans and programs and have one program - Make Jesus Famous! Let’s talk only about Him for a year and how we can make "His Kingdom come, His will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Let’s talk about how we can praise and worship Him more deeply. Let’s talk about how we can invite His presence more into our own lives and into our corporate gatherings. Let’s talk about how we can yield more fully to the Holy Spirit.
Let’s talk about how we can attract the fire of God’s love to fall on our communities. Let’s talk about bringing Jesus to the marketplace. Let’s talk about taking our cities for God. Let’s talk about deepening our intimacy with Jesus. Let’s talk about 24/7 worship. Let’s talk about miracles and power encounters. Let’s talk about revival so intense and the presence of God so intense that people spontaneously repent in the streets. This is all normal Christianity, not the upside-down mess we have today. This stuff has happened in the past! Why not now! Why not here! How bad do we want it? What will we pay to have it? Are we content with business as usual?
Let’s pray:
Lord Jesus we repent for our lukewarm self-centered lives. Lord we repent for making our lives all about us, instead of all about you. Help us to find our place in your story. Help us to make you famous in our place of responsibility. Lord we pray that you would rattle our cages, turn over our boats, kick us out of our nests, take us out of our comfort zones, fill us with courage, make us walk on water, make us so effective in spreading your gospel that the enemy tries to kill us. Do what ever it takes Lord, to make your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen
**** Jesus is Lord ****
Quotes:
"The apostles and early Christians got in trouble for proclaiming the Lord Jesus for what He is: the absolutely sovereign King of all. The King has never abdicated! Are we proclaiming the King, or asking people to "accept Jesus" as the chief advisor to their own private little thrones?" - Author unknown
"God’s army is warehoused in churches, held back by Kings who refuse to go to war." - John Eldredge
"Open warfare is upon you, whether you will risk it or not" - Aragorn
