Just like ME

Jesus is just like ME....my buddy...my homeboy...He needs ME....

This is a way of thinking that has bothered me for quite some time now....this materialistic Jesus that wants us to have everything our upper middle class heart desires...this needy Jesus who really REALLY desires to be our friend and wants desperately to know us...this buddy Jesus who we can talk to like our BFF....this watered down Jesus that we take to unbelievers because He somehow seems easier to digest than the Jesus who commanded us to deny ourselves...to know the costs of following Him...to hate our fathers, mothers, spouses and children....to pick up our cross and follow Him.

I could go on forever. The short end of it is this...

I am deeply offended when the gospel is presented in a watered down form. When Jesus becomes our buddy...when its all the sudden okay to sin because He is our peer...its okay with Him because He understands and loves the mess out of us anyway. When its more about me than it is about God. The end result quickly becomes....ME. Sinning just hurts ME and prevents ME from receiving God's favor RATHER than sinning deeply offends a holy God....God loves ME....period...rather than God loves me so that I may make His name known. So in our attempts to make Jesus more marketable and easier to digest, we have somehow have managed to place ourselves at the center of the gospel.

And ultimately...don't ya think if the gospel really needed to be watered down to be digestible to unbelievers...if the intention was for Jesus to be our peer...that God would have spelled it out pretty clearly in the Bible. Just sayin.

While I am not going to go on at length...my sweet hubby did. You can tell that our time together over the past few weeks has been interesting. I love and am so very grateful that Neil and I can be passionate about our Lord together.

Anyway....check out his blog...HERE...and then you can come back to me and comment. I think. :-)