Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

| by archiveworldraceblogs


In Matthew 4, Jesus straight up tells His disciples: "Follow Me".  He told them to leave it all – their families, their jobs, their friends.  Everything they knew, He wanted them to abandon for the sake of following Him.  Is that really hard to hear?  Heck yeah.  But is it biblical?  Is it truth?  Absolutely.  

 
David Platt puts it like this:
 
“Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of these eager followers of Jesus in the first century. What if I were the potential disciple being told to drop my nets?  What if you were the man whom Jesus told to not even say goodbye to his family?  What if we were told to hate our families and give up everything we had in order to follow Jesus? 

This is where we come face to face with a dangerous reality.  We DO have to give up everything we have to follow Jesus.   We DO have to love him in a way that makes our closest relationships in this world look like hate.  And it is entirely possible that he WILL tell us to sell everything we have and give it to the poor.  

But we don’t want to believe it. We are afraid of what it might mean for our lives. So we rationalize these passages away: ‘Jesus wouldn’t really tell us not to bury our father, or say good-bye to our family. Jesus didn’t literally mean to sell all we have and give it to the poor. What Jesus really meant was…’ 

And this is where we need to pause. 

Because we are starting to redefine Christianity.  We are giving into the dangerous temptation to take the Jesus of the Bible and twist him into a version of Jesus we are more comfortable with:

A nice, middle-classed, American Jesus.
A Jesus who doesn't mind materialism and who would never call us to give away everything we have.
A Jesus who would not expect us to forsake our closest relationships so that he receives our affection.
A Jesus who is fine with nominal devotion that does not infringe on our comforts, because, after all, he loves us just the way we are.
A Jesus who wants us to be balanced, who wants us to avoid dangerous extremes, and who, for that matter, wants us to avoid danger all together. 
A Jesus who brings us comfort and prosperity as we live out our Christian spin on the American dream.

But do you and I realize what we are doing at this point?  We are molding Jesus into our image.  He is beginning to look a lot like us because, after all, that is who we are most comfortable with.  


And the danger now is that when we gather in our church buildings to sing and lift up our hands in worship, we may not actually be worshipping the Jesus of the Bible.  Instead we may be worshipping ourselves.”


September 2011 Squad –

here's to being disciples who drop their nets.