Fame, Glamour, Fortune – can be yours at the click of a button
It has been a while since I last posted something, but I ran across this and just had to share. And it got me thinking that maybe it is time to start a magazine that shoots photos of movie stars and models without makeup, and without Photoshop. I think my daughters could benefit from such a publication. Who else might buy?
For Your sake or for the sake of Christ?
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake,30 engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have. (Philippians 1)
Believe and suffer.
Doesn’t sound very like a very good tagline for a consumer does it? And in this day and age of consumerism the Church has often changed our tagline for the sake of communicating to the culture in a way that is relevant.
Believe and you will be saved from Hell.
Believe and you get eternal life.
Believe and you will become God’s son or daughter.
Believe and God will fix your spouse, or your kids, or your parents, or your boss.
Believe and God will make you wealthy.
Believe and God will make you well.
When our belief is focused upon us…when your belief is focused upon you, and is for the sake of you, then we will always view Jesus through the eyes of the consumer. There is plenty of evidence that any one of these belief statements may be true for you, but in the end if our belief is built on any one of them we may be setting ourselves up for disaster. In the end if our belief is built upon our willingness to do believe and suffer for the sake of Jesus, then suffering can bring joy and a new depth of our worth becomes evident.
But to be willing to believe and suffer for the sake of Jesus requires that we become familiar with the depth of our own fallen state, our own hopelessness without Jesus, our own desperate need of Jesus, and that can be a humiliating experience…but one worthy of enduring.
What suffering might you be avoiding for the sake of your comfort?
What are you chasing?
You have been spared. Either you have over corrected only to find no oncoming car, or you have jumped before looking, or you have arrived late or early instead of on time, but regardless of the situation we all have been spared. There have been multiple moments in my life where it could have been the end, but the situation or circumstances just didn’t play out that way. It was either luck or providence. In either case I still am left with the question of why?
Why have you been spared?