In today’s blog I want to venture into what may be theologically challenging territory. In the teaching segment the past two Sundays at King Mountain Church I’ve talked about the difference between a spiritual life based on RULES or one based on RELATIONSHIP. The Pharisees, the Jewish sect which gave Jesus so much stress, were a perfect example of a religion based on rules. Jesus even said about them, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” (Matthew 15:18 NIV) The Pharisees, you understand, offered lots of lip service, but no life service. They knew all the nice sounding words to use to make it appear they were very spiritual. They had the look of people fully devoted to God when they dressed their Sabbath best. Yet something was desperately missing.
I want to draw a distinction between religious people who are devoted to following God and those who are devoted to follow Jesus. This where it may sound like I have a flaw in my theology. I am not for a minute questioning the deity of Jesus Christ. I believe Jesus was fully God and fully man. Here’s where I am going though, I believe there are more than a few people who attend Christian churches, but in their daily practice don’t truly follow Jesus. They, more or less, follow God. They give attention to the Ten Commandments and have a few other rules which they obey, at least when others are looking. They give “lip service” to Jesus, in the sense they’ll talk about him, and tell his stories, and even sing songs which mention his name. But here’s my point: “…their hearts are far from (Jesus).” They have no real desire to follow Jesus. Of course, they’d never admit to it, and, in most cases, don’t even realize it. Sure, they’re “Christians,” by their own claim, but they’re not Christ followers in the way they live. Pastor Dick Foth (yep, you can ‘like’ him on Facebook) says: “When you follow Jesus, he will lead you to the poor and the cross.” (My paraphrase) I’ve seen other similar statements which say: When you follow Jesus he will lead you to children, the poor and the cross. Hopefully, you get the point. Jesus is going somewhere, and if we’re really following him, we’re going with him. His journey, which becomes our journey, is one of ministry to hurting people. It may seem like an overstatement, but it’s probably not, to suggest that if we aren’t frequently (even daily) engaged in loving the hurting and broken, we aren’t following Jesus. You can’t read the RED (the words of Jesus in the Gospels), and not be captured by the thought that Jesus was always going places. His was a life of motion and ministry.
I pray that in Christian churches throughout North America, there would be a growing discontent with a religion of rules (following God) and, in its place, a renewed commitment to relationship with Jesus. It’s only fair to understand when you journey with Jesus he’s going to take you places. Some of those places will be hard and at times seemingly impossible. You will journey through places which will force you to new levels of trust in God and to draw upon spiritual gifts you weren’t previously aware existed within you. And, through it all, Jesus will be by your side and it will be the most fulfilling life you could ever imagine.
You can check it out for yourself, but favorite word of Jesus is: GO. It’s used 168 times in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (NAS count). So, to wrap up today’s blog post: WHERE ARE YOU GOING WITH JESUS TODAY?
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