"We're being good to show other people how good we are... and Jesus is calling you to be dangerous." -Mark Moore
"Jesus came to establish a kingdom, and all we gave him was a church". -Hans Kung
Monday, August 31, 2009
thoughts on the kingdom...
Sitting in the cove before class, I'm overhearing a conversation between people talking about conviction of sin and it sounds like they're talking as if conviction of sin and fixing what they're doing wrong is their main goal, the end result is perfection... but i cant help but wonder, Is our main goal as Christians to be perfect and good, or to be impactful followers? or both? Is there a difference? what would it look like if we really tried to imitate the Jesus of the gospels? would we be concerned more with the youth group kids cussing, or with the homeless person living in the church dumpster? is it possible to do both perfect and impactful?
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2 comments:
I think there's a reason why Jesus spoke very little on heaven and a lot on following Him, helping the poor and being a servant.
"Being good" is not safe. "Anyone who wants to live a godly life in Him WILL be persecuted." What we're cautioned against is doing good for the sake of being noticed for ourselves (Like Jesus said and Mark Moore echoed in that comment). We are still to do good for the praise of HIS Name. Remember that Jesus didn't condemn the religious for being persnickety about giving their tithes to the nth degree. He said the more important matters were being neglected. "More important" does not mean the rest are not important. He said, "You should have done the latter [more important things] WITHOUT neglecting the former [less important things]." Just think of what they would have been like if they had practiced the more important matters to the nth degree!
I'm truly worried about a generation that uses past negligence of the more important things to justify current negligence of the less important--especially when I don't see the "cussing preachers" being much more compassionate than their predecessors. I see them as extremes of each other.
We can say, "Well I'd rather this lesser of two evils," which is nice that one can express one's opinion, but Jesus says, "I prefer you do both."
That's not aimed directly at you, Josh, but do be careful you don't fall into the trap of either extreme. Be compassionate. And while you're at it, keep it clean, too. THAT combination is DEADLY.
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