If you’ll allow me, I’d like to be honest with you. In the ten years that I have been a Christian I have considered myself to be a bad one. I grew up in a southern Baptist church that encouraged me as a youth to develop a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” This was accomplished through consistent quiet times where one would study the word of the God and spend time praying to our Heavenly Father. However I struggled developing a desire to develop a personal relationship with Jesus. Don’t get me wrong; I have loved my Heavenly Father since the moment I decided I wanted to follow him, but what was lacking was what I thought would be a natural desire to know His word and be in prayer. I still struggle with this today and the thought that if I’m not doing these things then do I genuinely love Jesus? And up until about two weeks ago, I thought that made me a bad Christian. Much of my Christian walk has been filled with a frustration derived from my confusion as to why I struggled with being consistent with my “quiet times.” You see, the message of Christianity from a western perspective (in my opinion) preaches the importance of your personal relationship with Jesus Christ almost as if it is the most important aspect of you being a Christian and when one struggles with that, how can you not believe that you’re a bad Christian? I have wrestled with this very thing for the past ten years. Why don’t I desire to be in the Word everyday? Why is it hard for me to stop and pray when something comes up? Why was it easier for me to pretend to be spiritual and not be genuine? It was about two weeks ago that I believe I finally got my answer and it was in the form of a question.
If Jesus returned today, would you recognize him?
I honestly laughed to myself when I first heard this because the answer seemed obvious, well of course I would, how could I not?! But then I thought about it. And thought some more. It was at dinner one night where I was able to unpack this question more and some very meaningful light was shed on this question through that conversation. When you look at the ministry of Jesus found in the Gospels, you see him consistently defying the natural order of the way things were operating. Jesus was causing some trouble. Of course we’re taken back at the stories of all the amazing miracles and his meaningful teachings, but in all actuality what Jesus was doing was nothing but controversial. The thing that gets me is that it was the religious leaders and the keepers of the law, the Pharisees that were the first to speak against what Jesus was doing. It was the “Christians” of the time that were saying they disagreed with a King who cared for the poor and spent time with sinners. They cared to focus on the law and because of that they sent our savior to the cross. So here I sat, participating in this conversation when I made a connection when the question of whether or not I would recognize Jesus came to mind. What if Jesus came back and appeared homeless or was ill with leprosy and stumbled into the church that I was attending that Sunday morning? How would I react to that man? Would I get up to greet him and give up my seat or turn to my friend and point while starting to whisper judgments? Doesn’t this man know that I am trying to cultivate my personal relationship with Jesus Christ? What is he doing here? I’m not trying to comment on how you would personally react, but I unfortunately believe that the Western Church as a whole would not recognize our Savior if he came back in this way. I say that because I cannot remember a time in my ten years as a Christian that modeling my life after the ministry of Jesus was ever taught to be important. It was all about my personal relationship with Christ. Be sure to read your Bible. Be in prayer. Be in community with other believers. Me. Me. Me. But why wasn’t I taught that my walk with Christ is going to be uncomfortable? Or that I should live generously and care for the poor? That I should desire to be in fellowship with sinners? Where did the idea that me being a Christian only required me to be in relationship with him and to share the Good News with others? Why wasn’t I taught to model the ministry of Jesus in my daily life? And if this was taught, why wasn’t it made to be important, better yet vital to my walk with Christ? My view of Christianity has changed drastically. It’s not at all about a personal relationship with Jesus. Knowing the Word of God, being in prayer consistently, and being in community with fellow believers are all things that Jesus commanded us to do, but to place them as more important is wrong. I simply cannot ignore the ministry of Jesus and only focus on what he came to do for me. So I ask you:
If Jesus returned today, would you recognize him?
I most certainly want to be able to and I’m more and more convinced that simply being in relationship with him isn’t enough. Let us not be like the religious leaders who disagreed with the ministry Jesus was doing. Let us walk in the ministry Jesus demonstrated. This is what is important and that personal relationship with our Father is the added bonus. Contrary to what you may have grown up believing and certainly what I grew up believing, our faith in Jesus requires action. So I’m not a bad Christian and neither are you. That’s honestly not even important. But let us recognize Jesus when that day comes because we have been walking in the places where Jesus dwelt.