What’s your Jesus like?
Is he good and kind? Does he forgive you when you lie over and over again? Does he let you talk any way you want to because “you don’t really mean what you’re saying”? Does he love you always or only when you do good things?
Does your Jesus allow excuses? Does he think its OK to watch anything because you believe its not affecting you? Does he let you treat your friends badly because they treated you badly? Is your Jesus the cool guy you know you can turn to when you’re suffering? Is he the guy you ditch when life is going smoothly?
I have recently been convicted on this idea of Christians following their own Jesus and the more I think about that statement the more I believe it to be true. It’s easy to construct our own Jesus. To make him into someone who’s easy to serve, easy to love. Someone who doesn’t call us to live differently than the culture, so we can act, speak, and think the way we want. Constructing our own Jesus allows us a commitment-free lifestyle. We subconsciously align our own desires and standards with what “our Jesus” wants.
I blame us for this. I blame our sin nature. But I also blame our compromised culture. Our culture tells us to withhold our opinions, keep the peace, all so we aren’t offensive. Our culture tells us to compromise our beliefs so we aren’t shunned by society or create disarray. This in turn causes us to sacrifice the values, the morals, the standards that Jesus exemplified for us in His word, not the values, morals and standards we made up for ourselves. Those guidelines can and should be kicked to the curb because if they aren’t in line with direct character of Jesus, they will crumble when put to the test.
As Christians, it’s important to know what we believe and why we believe it. It’s important to know the God we serve and not create someone to serve that aligns with our own terms. It’s important to stand firm in all of this and not let our culture sway us or persuade us to compromise in our faith.
Hebrews 12:1-2 says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”
We are surrounded by people watching us, which is why it is of utmost importance to represent and follow the Jesus of the Bible rather than our own Jesus; For He is the perfecter of our faith. It’s with Him, and not through us, that we can live this life with peace, perserverance and a purpose, all the while anticipating the reward of eternal life with our Father.
