Jesus is not football. In fact He’s not any sport at all. He’s not a lot of fun games and He’s not food. He’s not a great night out or a pile of new friends. He’s not a ticket to a problem free or painless life.
The question is, ‘why do we advertise Jesus as this?’ ‘Oh come along! It’ll be a fantastic night. There’s football and food and different fun games. Oh and you’ll meet a pile of new friends.’ Why are people so scared these days to advertise Jesus as Jesus?
And why do people plead with people to become Christians. I never saw Jesus running after people, on his knees crying out, ‘Please. Please follow me. I’ll do anything…’ No he was quite the opposite. He told people that they couldn’t follow him if they weren’t willing to die for him. So why do we plead with people to become Christian’s and even mask Jesus with heaven. And yes we do mask Jesus with heaven. ‘Become a Christian and receive the gift of eternal life.’ The best bit about Jesus is Jesus. Not heaven but Jesus. I have not seen heaven but I hear it’s pretty incredible from the Bible. But the best bit about heaven is better than heaven itself and it’s that Jesus is there. So stop masking Jesus up with eternal life because all you get is people that’s in it for eternal life and not Jesus. And this creates an unsalty church and a group of church goers that are not willing to die for Jesus and are going to heaven.
So STOP MASKING JESUS!!
Lastly why do we put so much effort into evangelism events rather than just showing Jesus? Were told to be imitators of God and Jesus is God. But so many of us would rather put time into planning an evangelism event than spend time alone with God, becoming more like him. And our biggest problem is that many people don’t want to actually follow Jesus. It’s like how little do I have to do to get into heaven. It’s all about heaven for some people and not about Christ. But we have a problem with Christians that aren’t willing to do whatever it takes to follow Jesus, even to death.
I heard a guy on T.V. one day talking about his rally driving career. When he’s in a race he’s so focused on winning that if he needs the toilet he just goes. He just wets himself in the car. And there’s this one time he threw up in his helmet and just continued on for a couple of hours. How disgusting is that? Yet he endured the smell, the bad taste in his mouth, the wet trousers, the disgusting feeling and he fact that he felt ill, all so he could just finish the race.
Another man at a weekend talked about something called hard routine that they have in the army. The soldiers would be so focused on the mission that they would even let leeches suck on their blood. If they needed the toilet they would just go. They would spend days outside in all types of weather. There is no tolerance for error and no room for selfishness, indulgence or lack of focus.
We lack people with such a focus on Christ. People that give up their WHOLE lives to live out Christ and not just half of it. People that lack a desire to do God’s will and be holy like Christ.
Although this may not seem like evangelism the Bible says a life like this is.
Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.
Hebrews 12:14
Evangelism is not about changing other people; it’s about changing ourselves to be more like Christ.
