Have you ever played a game of telephone? If you haven’t, I’ll give a quick explanation: everyone playing sits in a line and the person at the beginning of the line comes up with a message and whispers it into their neighbor’s ear. When the message gets to the person at the other end of the line, it usually has changed and is a bit distorted from what the message actually was. We live lives that resemble this message at the end of an awful game of telephone, we have some of the same sounds and characteristics as the real us, but we mask who we truly are to the rest of the world. We know who the real us is but we change how we present ourselves slightly as we encounter new people so we don’t offend them, embarrass ourselves, or so we fit in. Most Christians are living the life equivalent of the telephone game where “Purple Rain by Prince” turns into “Poor me Pooped my Pants.” Living for Christ is about losing the pride, connecting directly with God and His plan for us, and being real with those that we encounter day to day.
Christians in today’s world are often too shielded from the real world that they live in and are far too often fake with that very same world about who they are, struggles they face, and why they follow Jesus. They remove their “reality” from their appearance so that they fit the “Christian” mold and appear worthy of salvation. This, to me, completely contradicts the message that the Bible and Jesus teach.
Jesus’ story is so beautiful to me because it’s not about a God that came and died for a bunch of perfect people, it’s not about a God that came to rescue people because He wanted them to look great in their weekly gatherings, and it’s not about a God that turns His nose up at anyone. Jesus came for the prostitute, the tax collector, the murderer, the liar, the porn addict, the socially “dirty”, the greedy, the thief, the rich, the poor, the *insert any sin here* person. Jesus came for me, a sinner of sinners, a Pharisee of Pharisees.
“Me” For Lack of a Better Heading
“If you aren't real with them, why should they be real with you? Also, if Jesus isn't real to you, why should He be real to them?” When a professor told me these parallel statements a few semesters ago, it truly hit home and made me think about the state of how we approach the world we live in and how we share the Gospel. I truly believe that the church as a whole and its individual members need to take the mask off and show the world all of our scars, tattoos, and troubles. And if I'm going to suggest that to the general public, then I should definitely lead by example.
I grew up in the buckle of the Bible belt being brought up by believers that brought me to church every Sunday. Jesus was a household name and was always kinda there in everything that our family did. When Christmas time would roll around, my mom would write a “Letter from Santa” for the four kids to discover on Christmas morning and Santa was always sure to remind us that “Jesus was the reason for the Season.” The Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy would always send us a similar reminder every time the occasion would arise. The crazy thing is, though, even with Jesus being so present in our daily lives, I don't think I ever truly met Him until later in life.
As I grew up, I would have different “spiritual encounters” with God and time and time again I would pray. But this prayer was never because I had met Jesus or experienced His love, it was because I knew that was expected of me. Jesus was the uncle that lived in Hawaii that I saw about twice a year at the most. And He meant about as much to me. I continued on this trajectory for years, with Jesus being an after thought and taken for granted.
I’ve struggled with self-image and self-worth issues from an early age. I was always a little bit heavier than the other kids and never fully accepted. I had nicknames like “Fat boy” and “chubster.” I was told by classmates that I was worthless and that I would never be loved by anyone except those that had to. This caused some deep seeded doubts and issues to be a main part of my view of the world and myself. One day in middle school I was hanging out at my friend's house playing video games. We only had two controllers so we had to keep trading off who was playing and who was sitting out. While this one friend was taking a break from playing, he was messing around on the computer in the corner of the room. He got excited all of a sudden and called the rest of us over to peer at the images on the screen: enter pornography into my world.
Porn took a deep hold on my love-sick, attention starved, hurting young heart. It crept its way into my every day, as a part of my routine just as common as brushing my teeth. Porn was my drug of choice, my elixir of momentary gratification. The conditions were perfect for the grip of its roots to grow deep into by being. It. Was. Cancerous. My heart shattered each time the screen would go black and I would look at myself disgusted with no idea where to turn or how to escape. Some days I didn't even want to escape. Slowly, this ill-advised addiction ate away at my hope, my joy, and my image of myself. I was trying to self-medicate for my feelings of inadequacy but simply stacked more on top with each click of the mouse.
My sins began to stack up higher and higher as if each one were a new brick in the fortress I was building for myself. The lust, self-hate, self-disgust, image issues, lying, drinking to excess, laziness, and every other sin just began to choke the life out of me. I was 100 miles away from home, in college, all alone, depressed and ready to just quit...
But Jesus! (Because there is no better heading)
Jesus finally truly found me in my freshman dorm, weeping from depression, stress, and guilt. When He found me, everything changed. My sins didn't stop completely, but Jesus captured me and began guiding me towards a better life. You see, my stack of sins did not make me any worse of a candidate for Jesus' love than anyone else. In fact, those sins were the very reason Jesus did what He did! My sins! Whoa! Jesus came to save the ones that were as far from God as possible. Excuse me while I internally rejoice and cry for joy!
The general "Christian" community has decided that when you become a "Christian" in this world, you become perfect and don't sin anymore, or at least that's how we present it to each other and the world. But that's not even close to what happens. Jesus said, "if you love me you will keep my commandments." It was never about being perfect, it was realizing that we can't be and need Jesus and his love to even begin to get our lives straight and right with God.
As "Christians" in the modern church, we have decided that the most important quality needed to be accepted as a member of our church group is to be as closely conformed to a specific image as we can, even when that requires us to lie, cheat, and deceive. This image is often wearing the nicest clothes, having perfect church attendance, an elitist attitude, and of course a "sin free" life. Allow me to be blunt: This is not what it means to follow Christ and, the "sin free" life? Yeah, we can't do that, that's why Jesus did. I truly believe that we need to open ourselves up to our church family and the world and show them our scars. Show them that we are real people who are in need of saving, not just a select group of good people that sit near each other for an hour a week. Jesus didn't come to hang out with him in-crowd and the best of the best, he came to save the worst of the worst. We can't be good enough, and that's the whole point.
I don't want to hide my imperfections. And I hope you don't either. The beautiful thing about our sin is that it is nailed to the cross and gone because of JESUS not because we are good at hiding it from the world. When we hide our sins, we become hypocrites. When we admit them and are honest enough to admit that we can't do it on our own, we become Children of God.
Your Brother in Christ and fellow Pharisee,
Will
Mark 2:15-17 "And it happened that He was reclining at the table in his house, and many tax collectors and sinners were dining with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many of them, and they were following Him. When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that He was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they said to His disciples, “Why is He eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?” And hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”"
