Friday, May 29, 2015

Just Enough Jesus

The reason why we sometimes get so frustrated is that we get 
"just enough Jesus to make us miserable." 
Marc Estes

...just enough Jesus to make us miserable?

In today's Christianity this almost seems blasphemous. Jesus is fun, Jesus is cool, Jesus makes life better! Right? Then how could Jesus make us miserable?

Jesus called us to be all in. He called us to be fully committed, devoted to the Gospel. He made statements like:

“If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." - Matthew 16:24

“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." - Luke 14:26

"And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell." - Matthew 5:30

Honestly, those scriptures don't sound like a lot of fun. Jesus will always accept us as we are. There is nothing we can do to earn our salvation, we simply need to accept it. However, Jesus doesn't want us to stay as we are after we accept Him. This means that the closer we get to Him, the more aware we are of our sin and our shortcomings. He does this not to make us miserable but to inspire us to change.

Jesus loves us the way we are but He desires us to be constantly improving.

When we refuse to improve but still try to be close to Jesus we end up feeling frustrated, maybe even miserable because we know that we could be in a much better place but are not willing to make the sacrifices to get there.

We have to decide what we are in this for. Why are you a Christian? Maybe you first accepted Christ simply because you wanted a way out of hell and into heaven. If that's true then that's fine but it's time to move on.

There is so much more to Christianity than just a ticket to heaven!

As long as we are content with just making it to heaven our spirit, deep down, will be frustrated. We need to start seeking God wholeheartedly. We need to looking for what He wants us to do on this earth and start declaring, in faith, His will over our lives! It's time to start taking what Jesus had to say seriously and dive in to what He has for us!

Have you ever had just enough Jesus to be miserable?

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