Seriously, stop lying about Jesus!! It is so disheartening to see the lies that we are spreading about Jesus and Christianity all because we don’t know our Bibles. It is sad that we have the highest rates of literacy in history yet we are so illiterate and ignorant when it comes to the Bible.
It is staggering to think that ‘only 19 percent personally read the Bible every day.’ We need to know truth so we can be light in a time when truth seems to be relative To make matters worse, according to Albert Molher “preaching has taken a back seat to other concerns in corporate worship. The centrality of biblical preaching to the formation of disciples is lost, and Christian ignorance leads to Christian indolence and worse.”
If we want people to come to know the Lord it is time the church digs into the Bible to find the true Jesus. Let’s clear up some common misperceptions we have about Jesus.
Come to Jesus and you will be healed
“Come to Jesus and you get a car, you get a healing, you get a house, that job, and everyone is going to love you.” It is sickening how many churches preach this prosperity doctrine. That you come to Jesus and you will receive material things. In case you didn’t know, Jesus isn’t Santa Clause.
He isn’t there for a list, of ‘oh goodie gen professes to be a follower of me now I am going to give her a car, and a great job and that holiday she wants.’ No! Come to Jesus and you get Jesus. Jesus doesn’t owe you a thing.
He gave some of us salvation and this is far more than we deserve. Just because we committed to following Him, or made a sacrifice in the offering, or asked for healing, we need to stop thinking we are entitled to something.
I know I have been guilty of this one “God I gave up my family, friends and home to move to another country to serve you and now my car broke down, come on Lord, I know you don’t want that.”
No!! Just because we follow Him does not give me a right to a free ride in life, it is in those moments of trial or need that I grow more like Him and to be sanctified as He works on my character through the difficult parts of life. We don’t follow Christ to get what we want in this world, we follow Christ for who He is and what He has done.
Come follow Jesus it isn’t going to cost you anything
Wait, what?? What the Lord did for us doesn’t cost us anything you are right, however following Christ is going to cost you something, actually, everything. No I am not talking about money but it might be money that God asks you to give up. Following Christ means that you abandon yourself whole heartily to Him.
We can’t be serving two masters, so either Christ or not, Matthew 16:24 tells us “to take up your cross daily and follow him.” Taking up your cross is painful and costly as you may lose family, reputation, friends, jobs, procession and maybe even your life, but considering eternity and the Lord we know that it is worth it.
Think of what Jesus did on that cross when He took the sins of His people, a holy and righteous God who willing bore my shame, my sin, it cost Him everything, so He expects the same.
God does not give you more than you can handle
This is a cliché that many in the church say and to be honest I have been guilty of saying it and it is so not true. Life is going to give us more than we can handle, some are going to get a lot more than we can handle. In those times of despair and agony remember what the Lord says in Deuteronomy 31:6 “He will never leave us nor forsake us.”
There is comfort knowing Romans 8:28 “we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” God sees a bigger picture than the little piece we have before us and we are to take comfort knowing that we can cling to the rugged cross and the Lord will carry us during this difficult times.
I can’t help but think of Shadrach and his friends in the book of Daniel 3:16-18 and how they had just been told they were going to be thrown into the fire alive. They answer to the king “our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
The same is for us. When life gets beyond what we can handle we need to trust God and lean on His understanding, not our own, we need to know that even if he doesn’t rescue us in the way we want that He is still God and we are not.
I want to challenge you to pick up your Bible this week. Read the words, study them, get involved in a Bible study (not just a book study) and find out what the Bible really says. That way we can ‘stand firm in the faith’ like it tells us in 1 Corinthians 16:13. It is time the Church gets back into the Bible.
Genevieve Wilson is a happily married stay at home, home-schooling mum of 3, whose passion is to see people come to know Jesus. She is a seminary wife to her amazing husband and has worked 8 years as a missionary with Youth with a Mission (YWAM). She has a heart for justice.
Genevieve Wilson's previous articles may be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/genevieve-wilson.html