Did you think it costs nothing?
Salvation is free. It is a free gift of God that He gives to those whom He chooses in Christ. Even the faith with which we believe in Christ is a gift given to us by God. Yes, salvation is free, but being a Christian requires you to give up everything.
In America we are a pampered people. John Piper said once that we were "chipper" people and that we are "easily broken." We like having the scriptures in an easily readable format, we like sitting on padded pews, in church buildings designed to be as accommodating us as humanly possible. We will serve Jesus when it doesn't really require anything of us, and we are just as Christian as we are comfortable being. Not so Jesus.
Jesus was ridiculed and scorned. He was called a drunkard and a friend of sinners. He went to places polite people did not go. He went with unclean people, touched lepers, was a friend to Jew and Roman alike. The crowds (like so many people today) loved Jesus when he gave them what they wanted and they turned on him when he would not. But Jesus told us that a servant is no better than his master. If they turned on Jesus, they would turn on his followers too.
There is a price to pay for being a Christian. Consider this, if we were to go to the helpless, the poor, those who cannot do for themselves.... what would people say about us? If we were to hang out with single, divorced moms, with drunkards, with prostitutes, with the homeless and needy, what would "polite" Christians call us? They might say we were also drunkards, adulterers, sinners, unclean, vile and people worthy of being shunned. Yet that is exactly what Jesus calls us to be, the scorned and abused. We are to be that so we can reach those who are scorned and abused.
What is money, fame, power, reputation, safety and security if we are not doing the work of Christ? And if we are doing his work, then what does it matter what other people think? Do we seek to please God or men?
In the end, in today's world, it costs us to do the right thing. But if we are doing God's will, what matters the cost? It is time to move out of comfortable Christianity into the places where God calls us to go. And it is time we realize there is a price for doing it.
Salvation is free. It is a free gift of God that He gives to those whom He chooses in Christ. Even the faith with which we believe in Christ is a gift given to us by God. Yes, salvation is free, but being a Christian requires you to give up everything.
In America we are a pampered people. John Piper said once that we were "chipper" people and that we are "easily broken." We like having the scriptures in an easily readable format, we like sitting on padded pews, in church buildings designed to be as accommodating us as humanly possible. We will serve Jesus when it doesn't really require anything of us, and we are just as Christian as we are comfortable being. Not so Jesus.
Jesus was ridiculed and scorned. He was called a drunkard and a friend of sinners. He went to places polite people did not go. He went with unclean people, touched lepers, was a friend to Jew and Roman alike. The crowds (like so many people today) loved Jesus when he gave them what they wanted and they turned on him when he would not. But Jesus told us that a servant is no better than his master. If they turned on Jesus, they would turn on his followers too.
There is a price to pay for being a Christian. Consider this, if we were to go to the helpless, the poor, those who cannot do for themselves.... what would people say about us? If we were to hang out with single, divorced moms, with drunkards, with prostitutes, with the homeless and needy, what would "polite" Christians call us? They might say we were also drunkards, adulterers, sinners, unclean, vile and people worthy of being shunned. Yet that is exactly what Jesus calls us to be, the scorned and abused. We are to be that so we can reach those who are scorned and abused.
What is money, fame, power, reputation, safety and security if we are not doing the work of Christ? And if we are doing his work, then what does it matter what other people think? Do we seek to please God or men?
In the end, in today's world, it costs us to do the right thing. But if we are doing God's will, what matters the cost? It is time to move out of comfortable Christianity into the places where God calls us to go. And it is time we realize there is a price for doing it.
posted by John | Sunday, March 11, 2007
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