Soft Christianity

Forgive me in advance.  I am perturbed and I will probably offend or hurt someone’s feelings today.  These are my words and thoughts.  What you do with them determines whether you are offended, inspired, or amused.  I won’t be tickling ears today so if that is what you were hoping for, move on. All I want to do is make you think.

I am annoyed by soft Christians.  These last two months I’ve been teaching these intro level faith classes and I have noticed that some Christians are lazy.  There is a desire to learn but not to study.  If we have to carve out the time or put the thought into learning, we give up before we even begin.  And there’s another thing.  “Carve out the time.”  Like our days are completely out of our control, dictated by what is on TV or our workouts or our children’s sports schedules.  We can’t determine what we spend our time on – that is controlled by outside forces.

I call baloney.

And let’s talk about holy living.  We get angry when people expect us to live a holy life.  To give up the pleasures of the world or the desires of our flesh just because we claim the title “Christian.”  We lean on “No man is perfect, no, not one.”  We lay claim to grace and toss around the sacrifice on the cross as our atonement for whatever sins we commit.  We determine that our sins are really just little things – you should see THAT guy!  We tell ourselves that a holy life is unattainable so we give ourselves room to commit these little sins because well, that’s what grace is for right?

I call baloney!

Let’s do this shall we?  Beat your child mercilessly with whips, chains, and rods.  Tear their flesh from their body and take them just to the point of death.  Take your child to a mountain top and kill them.  Turn your back on even their grave and walk away. 

Now adopt every other child in the world and give them your very best because now you have room for them.  Now that the other kid is out of the way.  Imagine that all those children you have adopted see Child Number One’s picture and say “Hey thanks for getting rid of Him so I could have his room.”  And then they disrespect you, trash your house, throw the world’s most epic frat party and expect you to clean it all up.

And they do that every. single. day.

Imagine if you asked them to pick up after themselves, take care of themselves, help one another and they laughed in your face and said, “Too late Buddy.  You already made room for me so I don’t have to do anything you ask.”

I am angry with Christians.  I am angry that we don’t take our time and worship.  I am angry that we don’t think Christ’s life and God’s separation from His Son, is worthy of our discomfort and discipline.  I am angry that we worry more about the fitness level of our body – not as an act of worship to keep the temple in condition – than we do the holiness level of our lives.

I am not suggesting we return to the Old Covenant and start following Levitical rules.  But what if you DID have to make an atonement for every sin in your life?  What if you DID have to bring grain and goats and doves and bulls?  Could you afford it?  And even if you could afford it, would you even bother?

I love God’s grace for me.  I am blown away that He would deem me valuable enough to notice me among the billions of beings on the planet.  That He would give His most treasured Son as a holy and perfect sacrifice because of my stupidity, selfishness, pride and anger, humbles me to my core.  Who am I?  May I never lose the desire to live a holier than before life.  It is the only worship I have that can even come close to honoring the gift lavished on me.

It’s up to each of us to pick up our faith and carry it and live it out according to our own conviction.  No one else will be accountable on our behalf at the end. I read 1 Corinthians 3 this morning and had to ask myself what I am building, what I am building with, and will it stand in the end. I would encourage you to do the same.