Jesus: Not Just A Cool Guy

I was, as I mentioned yesterday, out at a friend’s house on Friday evening and met a rather interesting man. He was, to give a few more details, a skater who came off his longboard (that’s a really long skateboard, by the way, and I didn’t know that either) and smashed a hole in his leg a few months ago. He also hit his head in the accident. Please remember this important detail! Anyway, you could see his leg right down to the bone. It wasn’t pretty. And he has some interesting spiritual views.

He, talking in metaphorical terms about his spiritual position, said that he can see Allah, Buddha, Jesus and a few others sitting in a room together, and, in his words, “they’re all cool“. Interesting! Oh, but that wasn’t the best bit. He then said, “and me, little old me. I’m stardust, floating on a ship“. Wow. Fantastic metaphor, or just a bit wacky? I’ll let you decide. Anyway, the best bit was the response from someone else in the room, who said, “So you were saying, you hit your head…” No prizes for guessing what they thought…

Joking aside, maybe that’s the unspoken view of a large number of people in our times. We live in an age of consumerist choice. We don’t like right and wrong. We like scales. Unfortunately, some things don’t work out that way. Buddha, Allah and Jesus can’t really fit in the same room. I don’t think any of them would get on very well. Buddha and Allah wouldn’t be much use anyway. In the book of John, Jesus is recorded is laying down an extraordinary claim:

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.”

(John 14:6, New King James Version [NKJV])

Buddha and Allah do us no good. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. How do we know he the One in whom we can put our trust? We can see the prophesies that were written over hundreds of years that he fulfilled according to the Bible. We can attest to the experience of our lives. We can look at historical evidence. We can hear the testimony of others. We can ask Him to reveal Himself to us. He promises us that if we search for Him, He will reveal Himself. Scripture tells us so:

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

(Matthew 7:7-8, NKJV)

Jesus isn’t just referring to material things. Far from it. He promises that if we seek God, we will find God. It’s promised in the Old Testament too. Isn’t it good to know that amidst the confusion of this world, God promises that if we truly seek Him, he will reveal Himself to us if we choose to listen for His voice?

 

Staying Fresh

Over the last couple of days, I’ve discovered a few things that haven’t been as clean or fresh as they should be. Yesterday, I came across an oven tray that looked like it has a couple of years’ fat on it. The bottom of the tray was literally caked in fat, a good 1/8 of an inch up. I’ve never seen such a dirty, greasy tray in my life.

Stale Bread

Today, however, I saw something even worse. I saw a loaf of bread that was not just a little off, or even quite mouldy. I saw a loaf of bread that literally was just mould. Astonished, I took a closer look, risking some kind of awful infection by picking it up. Yes, the whole thing was green. As it arose out of the bread bin I found it in, a hige plume of green smoke followed me, choking me in the process.

This was stale to the core. There’s no use for this any more. It’s not redeemable. In John 6:35, Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

The bread in the picture has ceased to be bread. It is a relic of its bygone glory, but Jesus is eternally the bread of life. Jesus is never past his sell-by date. He doesn’t go off. He should be the same to us today as the first day we walked in our salvation. Is he? If He isn’t, then maybe we should spend time seeking Him again, because as the bread of life, He is everything we need. He is our staple. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!

 

Sacrificial Living

How generous are you? I like to think that I’m fairly generous. I’m not rich, but I try not to hold in to what money I have too dearly – although I admit, I could probably tithe more generously. I’d like to think I’m generous with my time, investing in other people. I’d like to think I’m good at welcoming people into my home and to helping them when they are in need. So, in that sense, do I come across as a ‘good Christian’? To some, maybe. But then Jesus comes along and talks about how a Christian should truly be marked in their walk with God:

“Here’s another old saying that deserves a second look: ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.’ Is that going to get us anywhere? Here’s what I propose: ‘Don’t hit back at all.’ If someone strikes you, stand there and take it. If someone drags you into court and sues you for the shirt off your back, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.

(Matthew 5:38-42, The Message)

Ouch. The screw tightens, my pride cries out. Do I still come across as such a ‘good Christian’? No. I fall well short of the Glory of God (Romans 3:23). It’s easy for me to be generous to people I know, to my friends. I can serve them easily because I know they will serve me too. But what about people who won’t serve me in return? I don’t serve those people quite so easily. If I do serve them, I don’t serve them with my whole heart, with willingness, with a joyful spirit. I bemoan how ungrateful they are, how they need manners, or how they need Jesus to meet them powerfully in their lives – as if I, somehow, have been perfected to a point where I don’t need Jesus myself any more (which I haven’t; I need Him as much as I ever have)!

But you see, it’s not even in the serving that I fall short. What happens when people behave unjustly towards me? I cry out for ‘justice’ to be done! I long for them to be brought to their knees in repentance! O, how I cry out that God would smite them and turn them into creatures the size of ants. Then, they would think twice before doing that again!

That puts me at the centre of everything. Suddenly, everything is about me, myself and I. It’s not about God. It’s just about me wanting some kind of sadistic penance. How very Christian of me. I lose my perspective. It’s true, those people who have dealt me an injustice have sinned, they do need to repent of their sin, but it’s not me who they need to repent to – it’s God. When I lose sight of that, when I lose sight of the fact that it’s all about God’s relationship with that person, and most certainly not about my vindictive character, I lose sight of the cross.

I’m not such a ‘good Christian’ after all. In fact, I’m pretty rubbish. Thank God for grace. Give me your grace, Lord! Give me the strength to follow your ways and your teaching! For if there’s one thing I know, clearly, it’s that of my own doing, I cannot attain those ways of my own doing.