These are my thoughts on contemporary Christianity. I was originally going to apologize for offending anyone, but in retrospect decided not to. If you’re offended by this, it may be for the same reason I would have been offended by this many years ago. Now I find these things offensive, but for an entirely different reason. By the same token, this is not meant to be a condemnation. It’s food for thought, and something I’ve been chewing on for awhile.
Luke 9:23 “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?”
Christianity has become a transaction.
Christians give belief. In exchange, they receive salvation. In churches all over America this is the message that is given: if you believe all the right things, you will be saved. Simply sit back, accept these ideas and writings as facts, and you are getting into heaven.
The gospels contain countless directions on how Christians are meant to behave as followers of Jesus. Love your neighbor. Make amends with an adversary. Love your enemies. Give to the needy. Be humble in prayer. Don’t worry. Don’t judge others. Heal the sick.
Who doesn’t know someone that believes Christians are hypocrites? I know lots of people that feel that way. And they’re right. We all mess up. It’s part of being human. I make mistakes, lots of them.
Then there’s the “prosperity gospel”. There are McChurches; places where you will see no cross, you will hear no teachings on the nature of sin, and you’ll most certainly never hear a verse from Ezekiel. They are monuments to wealth. Fancy buildings, funded sometimes by millions of dollars given by the congregation. No poor are housed there. No hungry are fed there.
Joel Osteen is the head of the Lakewood Church, held in the former Compaq center. The congregation paid over $90 million for this facility.
Guess what? Following Jesus is not about you. It’s not about feeling really good about yourself, and discovering your talents, and sitting back in a cushy seat on Sunday, doling out dollars and being Saved. To followers of the prosperity gospel, I would give the following advice: read the Bible. Worshiping money by using God is not what it’s about.
John: 21:25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
Jesus came to do things. He did not just come down to the Earth, hang out for about thirty years, and then die. If he did, then the Bible would certainly be a lot shorter. He taught, he healed people, he drove money changers out of the temple. He touched those that were considered unclean.
The question I keep asking myself is what do I have to be proud of? Nothing. I am no longer content to sit back and worship. My hope is that one day I can get up in the morning, let go of myself, take up the world’s burdens, and follow Jesus.
