We look like idiots!

I know people that can recite scripture backwards, forwards, sideways and in numerous different languages.  The real truth of the matter is, I've never striven to be that person.  Nothing wrong with being able to do all of that, as a matter of fact, it is a very high calling to do so.   Yet, I also believe if it, (the intent of the Gospels) is not visible in our life without us having to use words, we might be missing the point.
 

Religion doesn't lead us to the truth nearly as much as it distracts us from it. 

Over the last few weeks my wife and I have been studying through a Life Group program at church.  Also we bought and watched a 7 part DVD series entitled BASIC by Reverend Francis Chan, as well as watched weekly messages from Pastor Andy Stanley from North Point Church in Alpharetta, Georgia.  These are two guys that truly “get it” in my opinion.  Actually we watch and read lots of things on a regularly basis in our quest to learn more about God and his ways, but in particularly of late we've been involved with these things all at the same time.  

 
A lot of it flows together like God placed it all in our hands at the same time to reiterate a point He’s trying to make.  I’m one of those people that needs that kind of thing.  I don’t always see the light-bulb moment when it’s staring me in the eye, so God usually has to go the extra mile in teaching me what it is He knows will enrich my life. 

In a time when the world is becoming increasingly unpredictable and unstable, and life is becoming more and more difficult to deal with, fewer and fewer are turning to God for the answers, for hope.  Why?  I believe it’s because we look like idiots to them!  Let me back up for a moment, not all of us look like idiots. True followers of Jesus actually look stranger than mere idiots to the nonbelievers.  I recommend if you haven’t seen the movie; God's Not Dead go see it.  It’s a great example of what I’m referring to here.

We have to ask ourselves if we, as Christians are consumers of Christ or followers of Jesus. Do we use our "christ" like a roll of paper towels to clean up some mess in their lives. Do we use our "christ" like a new car to drive through their neighborhood to show off their importance and success. Do we use our "christ" like prayer oil or a shiny gold cross to pray to when things get too tough to handle on our own. "christ" - just another product in their lives that make this world easier to live in, as if that's what it’s all about.

The alternative: Become a follower of Jesus by knowing what he said and did, then living out our lives accordingly through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And what we'll find is that there's no product we can buy or buy into that will give our life more purpose.

All of that (what you just read) may be a bit tough to swallow - yet I believe every word of it to be true.  TRUE, but only a partial view of things!  Like looking through the lens of a camera where ½ of it has been blacked out.  Here’s the remaining half I believe to be just as TRUE.

“Christianity” as we know it, is a much more difficult acquirement than any religious leader in my life and/or probably yours has ever been able to fully explain. The call from Jesus is quite simple; Come follow me – but what that entails is something far from simple.

If it’s true that some of us do in fact look like idiots trying, I don’t believe it’s due to a lack of effort, or a lack of sincerity, or even a lack of morality. I believe it’s due to us simply being 100% human.     Human just like Peter, James, John, Matthew and rest the gang - humans with lots of issues.  Remember reading all the stories where the disciples just seemingly never really “got it” while everyday they were hanging out with the Man himself. The questions they asked seem so stupid especially to us, a people that have grown up with the gospels spoon-fed to us our entire lives. The way they doubted, showed such little faith, such lack of understanding and denial.   Jesus, as we know and believe was not only 100% human but he was also 100% God as well. 

As I read the Gospels I find there were several times Jesus’ patience was pushed just short of saying; Hey guys, y’all look like a bunch of idiots, come on now try to get what I’m saying here! They were constantly getting caught up in the miracles, the fame they were acquiring, their own personal future in the kingdom etc, etc. They were focused on everything but the intent Jesus was trying to impart it seemed. Just like we do today, they spent a great deal of time focused on all the wrong things. 

The big picture of all this is, no matter how hard we try, no matter how sincere we are with our relationship with Christ, we’re simply going to fall far short of the standard He set.

I spent the majority of my adulthood thinking and believing that to be a true follower of Christ you had to spend every waking hour trying to be Christ-like. Yet, what I've found to be true is; to be a true follower of Jesus it simply means you have to learn what Jesus taught, and then apply that to your life in every way possible. 

I know, on the surface it looks and sounds like I’m saying the same thing. This is why I think so many people get it wrong, just as I did for so many years. Yet, when you really chew into those two statements you can begin to see the difference. What I've learned is this; if you “try to be Christ-like” you are setting yourself up for failure because this standard is far beyond our capabilities. I believe we’ll reach one of two levels and then we’ll migrate to the other, going back and forth from one battery post to the other the rest of our days. At some point in this process of striving to be Christ-like we’ll begin to see how futile our effort is and we’ll become dejected. This eventually leads to feelings such as stupidity and shame for being such a failure. 

On the other hand there will be times when we think we've gotten ourselves to a pretty good Christ-like level and we’ll become arrogant and judgmental of others. Typically we never really compare ourselves to Jesus, we merely compare ourselves to others and that’s how we judge how we’re doing. Are we the best of the best? And when I say “best” I’m actually referring to all those "other people" calling themselves “Christians” with all their faults and sins we can detect with our super cool, x-ray-like vision God has gifted us with.

In the end, we’ll ride this roller-coaster of emotions back and forth until, just like me on a real roller-coaster, we want to throw up or simply get the heck off of the ride.  We can see examples of what I’m talking about in so many failed ministries and in the details behind so many empty church buildings throughout the land. I suspect you can also see examples of this in your own past or present Christian life. I know I can with mine.

The second position I mentioned, (being a follower of Jesus) consists of just two things; 1. learning what Jesus taught, then 2. applying it to your everyday life. I believe this type of mindset will create a couple by-products as well. First and foremost it will keep you humble and focused on just you and Jesus and not comparing yourself to others, and secondly it will certainly take a life-long effort to work through. It’s called discipleship for a reason – it ain’t easy by no stretch of the imagination, and I believe when we try to do it any other way, we do indeed look like idiots.

Imagine for an instance the phone rings today and on the other end is a person offering you that one job you've always dreamed of having. Whatever “that job” may mean to you, but imagine you've just been offered it, and along with it they’re willing to pay you ten times your current pay. Not a hard decision to make is it? Oh yeah, and you can work from home if you like, relocate to any city in the world if you like, wear whatever clothes you like, shoes or no shoes if you like, have an office anywhere you like, hire anyone to work for you as an assistant that you like. The perfect job in every way! So the first thing you do (after immediately telling your employer where to stick your current job) is to go in for orientation and fill out all that crappy paperwork that comes with a new job.

Yet, imagine the look on the Human Resource Manager’s face when you get to the benefits information and you tell them you’re just not interested in ANY benefits. 

You mark the little box to decline the FREE health insurance, the FREE life insurance, the FREE fully vested and company contributed retirement plan, the FREE profit sharing program. You tell them you will decline to take any vacation days, holidays, sick days, etc. as long as you’re employed with their company. You go on to explain you will also refuse to be paid overtime regardless how many hours you work, so please don’t even add any to your paychecks. You explain to them, this is your Dream Job and because it’s your dream job nothing else matters. 

So, what does the HR Mgr think when he/she hears all this spew out your mouth, exactly; “What an idiot!” They think; “Here we are offering this idiot the best, totally FREE benefits package of any company – ever, and he turns it down – what an idiot!”

Let me point out in this closing section, nothing I wrote earlier has anything to do with a person’s Salvation, or God’s grace. There is nothing we can do on our own to receive His plan of salvation, except call on Jesus and tell Him we want to receive it, and that we believe He is our only hope. That’s it! Nothing you or I can do in our lives that will ever earn us our salvation. 

Yet, to receive Christ into our heart as our Savior and then not want to become a follower of Jesus is like getting that dream job, but turning down all the important, FREE benefits that comes along with it. We look like idiots when we do this! 

You've heard me say before; “many want a Savior, yet few want a Lord over their lives.” That is what I’m referring to in this article – calling our self a Christian, versus being a Follower of Jesus. 

So let’s wrap this thing up now, whatta you say? 

What did Jesus say it took to be His follower? He simply said; “take up your cross and follow me.” Not exactly what you want to hear over the phone when you’re being offered that dream job now is it? To understand the fullness of what He was saying we need to know this; at the time Jesus lived and not far from where he was raised up, still stood the crosses of the great and mighty rebellion leader Spartacus and his army of followers. On those crosses still hung the decayed corpses, which had been picked over by every rodent, tree climbing animal and bird in the area. They stood about 10 yards apart stretching for nearly a hundred miles and they were left out in the elements for decades until they rotted and fell to the ground and were consumed. Jesus along with everyone else in his times had a clear and daily reminder as to the significance of what happens when you follow someone into a rebellious battle against the established – they understood the significance of a cross. 

So, in other words when Jesus said to his potential followers; “take up your cross and follow me” there was no misunderstanding in anyone’s mind that what he was truly saying was; be willing to die with me.  

To become a true follower of Christ we must first be willing to die to ourselves, as his earliest followers had to do. Just like Peter the fisherman and Matthew the tax collector, we cannot continue in our comfortable little lives with all our comfortable little conveniences and still be a true follower of Christ. We have to be willing to become transformed into something far more important than mere comfort creatures. We have to be willing go, to love (truly love), to care for others, to do - all He requested of us. 

We have to become the light (a vessel for His light) in this dark, dark world. I believe the only way to get there is to let go of our grip on the things of this world and reach for the things of His Kingdom. We have to denounce our citizenship to a dying world with all its neat and wonderfully tempting stuff for a shot at our dream job? 

Not so appealing now, is it? IT WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE! The Bible says the world will look at us as being  fools doing and saying  foolish things. RELIGION made it easy for us, Jesus told us the truth. The RELIGION man created also created many, many ways to hang onto this world with all our might while still stretching out our feeble little hands to God asking for this, begging for that, (usually just asking for more, more, more of this world) to be added to the big pile of stuff we already have. Yes, we indeed do look like idiots when we live and think this way - that somehow it’s all about US, and how much God just loves US, and wants US to have all the things WE want to have. 

Yet, Jesus, the Son of God says; NO, that’s not what it’s all about. 

As I earlier stated; to be a true follower of Jesus requires just two things: learn what Jesus taught (which means you’ll have to actually read the Bible for yourself, as opposed to merely reading the words from the big screen on Sunday morning) – and secondly, you’ll have to be willing to apply his teachings to your everyday life. Trust me when I say this, it’s much easier said than done when you try and do it His way instead of one of the many ways of RELIGION. 

As far as the term idiots in this article, I apologize if it offended anyone. The writers of the Bible uses the term “FOOL” - and they used it in one fashion or another nearly 40 times. I prefer idiots, but that’s just me!   

Two things Jesus railed against throughout his ministry were hypocrisy and pretentiousness 
and I believe when we put on the cloak of either one we do indeed look like idiots.