And
what’s wrong with wanting to be successful? Most churches I know of want to experience
success. We often measure it based on attendance
or relevance to what can be offered elsewhere, like concerts, charismatic
speakers, etc. This particular article was about personal success and it was shared
by a Christian teacher working at a Christian school. It caused me to wonder how much our Christian
culture has become like the world instead of like Christ.
How
different are we? When the world looks
in on us, does being Christian still mean living like Christ – loving unconditionally,
being presenters of truth and justice, full of Grace and Mercy? Are we a culture that goes beyond the appetite
for the material and temporal to offer what is sure and unseen? Can I do more than simply tell someone about Christ because I actually have experiential knowledge of Him? Is
that knowledge changing me?...Is it changing the Christian culture in which I live? And can I lead someone else there? Or has being “Christian”
come to mean something different because we aren’t much different from the
world?
I
once heard someone say there was too much “Jesus talk” in the church service. It was too spiritual and we should do something relevant to attract people. Another quipped that being Christian
wasn't just about being Christ-like. Now I might be mistaken, but I'm fairly certain the world has the corner on the
market on everything BUT Jesus, and Jesus is what they need. The problem is, Jesus is not necessarily who we
have or what we’ve become.
Dallas
Willard once said, "To be conformed to a sick culture means to become sick ourselves." Wise Solomon says, “Bad company corrupts good
morals.” While this might be used
wrongly to justify the things mentioned in the above article on success, I suspect
it actually means something entirely different.
As I
look at the way Jesus lived, I am not convinced His plan was to be relevant to
the world. He
said things like, don’t degrade yourself or others with adulterous thoughts, people are worth more
than that. Turn the other cheek when
struck, let Christ even the score. He said
you have to lose your life to actually find it. He said bear each others' burdens, consider others better than yourself. Jesus lived differently and He offered a different life to those He encountered. He gave the woman at the well different water and she drank deeply from the life of Christ....and she was changed.
so
I wonder, have I ever really “left it all" or lost my life to His? Have I ever drank deeply from His well of life-giving water? If I did, how would it change me, and how
would it change my culture?
The
Apostle Paul mentions, among other things, being committed to each other in
brotherly love. At the beginning of this
post, most cringed to read about dismissing a person after 5 minutes. We cringe because intuitively we know it’s
wrong. But if we are honest, we would
have to say we probably do it. We just
don’t advertise it. Maybe that's because we don't understand why it's wrong. Maybe we need to understand better that dismissing goes against the
spirit of God to love and mars the dignity of another’s soul. It is a grievous act and ought to be
acknowledged as such. Sometimes I need to be reminded that when I commit
myself to love without anything in return, I begin to catch a glimpse
of God’s beautiful Kingdom life and wake
up to a whole new reality.
This
reality is an alternative culture brought into a world otherwise dominated by power, money,
materialism, greed, sex, you name it. No
matter the century, this beautiful, alternative life is available to you and me. We can
step into it and begin to live, and I mean really LIVE. It is a place where we aren't driven by the
need to succeed, to shop until we drop,
We don't have to search endlessly for romance, or spend precious resources keeping up our
image or getting even…Instead we can seek to love others well, live life simply,
and keep on the journey towards God together. It’s
not perfect and by no means a utopia. In
fact, it’s pretty messy and requires exorbitant amounts of God's strength and grace, but we will be happier people for it! Its the way every human being was meant to live. To live any other way is to live inhuman.
“Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here’s what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It’s the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. Mean-spirited ambition isn’t wisdom… Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor” – James 3:13-18
So
I guess what I am asking is this: How can our Christian settings, albeit families, schools
or churches, begin to provide an alternative culture for people looking for Jesus? What must we do to let His Kingdom reign
right where we are with those standing right next to us? In the end, that is a life well lived….that
is success. And it does not happen on
the backs of other people but it is accomplished
as we seek to love God and others by taking up our cross daily to follow him.
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