Fast Food Jesus

         Imagine your going out to eat after church on Sunday and you decide to try BurgerPrince instead of your usual pick of Cindy's. Now imagine going into the restaurant and ordering your food and the cashier handing you a spatula, apron, and a burger patty and pointing you towards the kitchen. That would probably be the last time you went to that restaurant. Why? Because we like to be served, we enjoy being waited on, it's human nature. That's why we don't mind paying extra for big screen TV's, country clubs, first class airplane seating, luxury cars, and lawn motors that mow your lawn for you(don't believe me, check out http://www.robotlawnmower.ca/). Let's be honest, we like to be served and treated like kings and queens. Whole marketing campaigns and business organizations are built on that one fact. We know what we want and we want it fast.

           It can be scary when you see this attitude transferred to the church. I can't tell you how many times I have heard someone complaining about the sermon, the music, the media clip, the technical difficulties, what he said, what she said, etc. But I can count on my fingers (probably only on one hand) how many times someone has come to me and asked how can they serve in church. Jesus made it very clear that following him was not going to be a trivial pursuit. In fact, Jesus said "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."(Luke 9:23) Being a Christian was never promised to be easy. We're here to bring people to God and to serve each other. Problems within churches would decrease drastically if we would switch our mindset from how can I be served to how can I serve. You know God put us here to be sponges of sermons, teaching, and love. However, sponges were never meant to retain everything that they take in. We were never meant to keep this to ourselves. We are supposed to give it out. We love because Christ loves us. We forgive because Christ forgave us. We serve others because Christ came to us as a suffering servant. If we continue to have an attitude of how can I be served each Sunday, then we will continually leave unsatisfied. What is the church? It is a body of believers who display uncanny amounts of love due to their unity in Christ. Anything short of that is a distortion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Don't be a fast food Christian. Get in the kitchen and serve. 

Giving Up

I used to wrestle and the one thing I remember most about it is the workouts and how hard coach made us practice. It isn't the matches I won that I remember, or even really the matches I lost (though I remember those much clearer than the ones I won). It's the hard work during practices that I remember. I don't really know why, but I think it's because those workouts were influential in who I am today. Well, it wasn't the workouts so much as the way coach made us push ourselves past where we thought we were as a wrestler. The only reason I was good at wrestling is because I was able to push myself beyond exhaustion... beyond what I thought were my limits.

I think this applies to us spiritually too. There scriptures often use the analogy of sports to apply to our spiritual lives. In Galatians 2:2, Paul says that he is running a race that is not in vain. In Hebrews 12:1, Paul says to set aside anything that holds you down and to run the race of endurance. In 1 Corinthians 9:26, Paul says that he runs with purpose and not in vain. In 1 Timothy 6:12, Paul says to fight the good fight. But in Ephesians 6:13, Paul says to stand. Not run or fight, just stand. How come the sudden switch from these seemingly active actions to a passive action? Paul is saying that at that point of exhaustion in your spiritual life, where you have done everything to stand firm in what you believe, just stand. We may think that this is naive of Paul to say that after you have done everything to stand. We may be frustrated when we read that Paul says when you feel like giving up and just falling down and quitting- just keep going. Does he not know how hard it is to have your beliefs attacked, or to have your life falling apart at the seams, or to be so exhausted to the point of not wanting to get up in the morning? Does he not know what it is like to be laid off, or hurt by someone you love, or to be addicted to something that you just can't quit? The only conclusion I could come to is that he did know all of this, you can see that by looking at his life, he lost everything for Christ, but what kept him going, what kept him standing wasn't what he knew but who he knew. The only thing that kept Paul in the race, that kept Paul standing up for Christ was Christ himself. And that is the only way you will be able to stand even in the midst of everything the enemy and life throws at you. Will you stand for the one who died for you?

Somewhere Along the Way

Last week I was at a restaurant with a couple good friends and we witnessed a kid about 6 years old slam himself down on the seat at a table next to us and angrily fold his arms in defiance. He did it in such a way that he believed his dad was going to be sorry he didn't get him that toy he wanted at the register. His dad calmly sat down at the next open table and said "Ok I'm gonna eat over here without you". The kid quickly moved to his dad's table and started eating his food, still angry. At first I chuckled to myself and kept eating my food, but later it struck me. How many times do we act like this? I cannot tell you how many times I have heard adults say to one another that they deserve to be happy, that they deserve to buy a bigger home, a nicer car, or a 53" flat screen TV. In fact, I have said these same things. But the hard truth of the matter is that we don't deserve any of these things.

I've noticed that many Christians have the "I deserve it" attitude. How did we get here? Somewhere along the way, we forgot our place before God. We forgot that we have done nothing to obtain grace. We don't deserve God's grace (that's why it's called "grace"). We don't deserve a flat screen TV. Men, you don't deserve season tickets. Ladies, you don't deserve chocolate. The only thing that we truly deserve is hell. I don't know about you, but I'm incredibly thankful that God hasn't given me what I deserve. According to Romans 8, God made us co-heirs with Christ. That's the complete opposite of giving us what we deserve! I hope that I can live my life as a reflection of the gift I have received. I hope that we can become increasingly aware of all that we don't deserve so that we can give Him the glory.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved.  -Ephesians 2:4-6