Killing Complacency
The Unapologetic Truth Series
In John 14:6 Jesus says that He is “the way, the truth, and the life”
When I first read that verse I had to take a moment to let the implications of what Jesus proclaimed sink in. Jesus is saying that anything other than Him is not the right path, is a lie, and is death. That is radical and should challenge your faith no matter if you are a Christian or not. But Jesus is very clear when He says this, and there are no ifs, buts, or when’s about it. Jesus is the truth!
I had to take a second to look at my life. I know God, I have a relationship with him, and I have experienced his perfect love. I believe God is the way, the truth, and the life, but is that how I am living? If we flip the coin on that verse then where does that leave me?
I had to think about these questions because while I have been on the World Race I can attest that my life is centered around Jesus, but I have the privilege of having very little distraction here. Regardless of distraction, Jesus says that anything that you have that isn’t him is a lie. This is the beginning of the idea of Killing Complacency.
I am writing this blog as a challenge to my faith as well as yours because the gospel gives life-changing transformation and if we aren’t living in that, then we are complacent to the urgency of it. The Gospel demands an answer.
I want to start with a paraphrased testimony from a documentary called Sheep Among Wolves. (A little background is that the fastest growing church in the world is the Iranian Church which had a decentralized leadership that is entirely run by women. I will be attaching the link at the bottom of the blog and I highly encourage everyone to watch it) A couple of Iranian Christians fled persecution from Iran to the United States so they could live freely in their faith. After a few months, the wife said they needed to return to Iran because the spiritual deadness of the American Church was a far greater threat than persecution by the Iranian government. This short testimony speaks loads of volumes. How could this happen? Isn’t America founded on Christian morals and is known around the world as the Christian nation? Yet this woman said that the spiritual deadness was a far greater threat than potential death.
Jesus calls us to live countercultural lives that don’t just exist on Sundays. The enemy moves so freely in America because we are so complacent to the spiritual strongholds of our nation that we don’t even see it. This is an unapologetic truth that I have seen over and over again while being removed from the States. Our concerns are so earthly rather than heavenly. Jesus calls us to give everything to him, but we only give him our Sunday morning. I want to break complacency because there is nothing complacent about God coming down as human and dying for us so that we may have the choice to enter into his fullness. If Jesus is only a part of your life and not everything then you have a choice because God is a gentleman. You can either stay where you are or you can ask for more. More experiences will show that God is not just some character in a book or far removed from us. More love encounters will have you question why you didn’t meet the savior sooner. More of actually living your life in freedom and joy and not for pointless matters.
Do you know that when Jesus ascended into Heaven he sent down Holy Spirit and because the veil was torn on the day Jesus died, the Holy Spirit dwells inside of us? Did you also know that Jesus tells us that we will do greater works than him? And did you know that the Holy Spirit inside of us is the same spirit that Jesus had when he rose again on the third day, and the same spirit that the apostles had when they spoke in tongues on Pentecost and cast out demons in the streets, and the same spirit Cornelius the gentile had when he had a vision from the Lord to bring Peter to his house? The Lord has given us unique gifts, spiritual or not, for the most important task of all time, to bring kingdom! To bring freedom! To bring the perfect love of the perfect Father!
I want to kill complacency because it is straight from the enemy! I want to see people experience the Lord and live in the promises He has for us! Find the truth for yourself and own your faith because the truth of Jesus is far greater than any of us can even imagine.
-Brent
This is the Link to the documentary Sheep Among Wolves. This is the link to part 2 but you do not need to watch part 1. It’s sooo powerful so I encourage everyone to watch it!
