personal

We want so badly for everyone to know Jesus. We call a whole wing of the faith, filled with multiple millions of believers, Evangelicals, after the idea that we need to tell everyone the good news of Jesus. But, it's hard to get anyone to listen. We try but who really cares anymore? They don't take notice.

But our society has sat up and taken notice. It's agreed with us that Jesus is just who we said he is: our personal savior. And in agreeing with us, society has asked, nay, insisted, that we keep to our word and keep Jesus to ourselves, because after all, it's personal.

And there we are, emasculated, void of power and unable to answer the peril and pain the world faces because Jesus is a personal savior, he's just for us. We'd like him to be everyone's personal savior, but of course, that's a personal choice best left to the individual to make if they decide to have a personal relationship with Jesus.

We don't like it that our faith has been relegated to the closet of personal belief. We feel stripped of our strength and punch when we're told that what we believe is fine for us, but really, it's not appropriate to impose our personal views on others.

And so, we're left to sit quietly with our personal savior and watch the world go by, like an old man on a bench, people watching at the mall. Ah! How interesting it all looks, but we can't interact, engage or shape the world we witness; just look.

We put ourselves in this place. We insist that Jesus wants nothing more than to have a personal relationship with you! We insist that Jesus died on the cross for you! We insist that Jesus loves you! (yes, always with an exclamation mark, because we really mean it)

We insist that it is all about what Jesus can, wants and will do for the individual. And in doing so we have lifted the individual above our God. We have put the individual on the throne. We've handed over the right to decide what is and is not to the individual, reducing the Lord of All to nothing more than a mechanism for successful living and happiness.

We're begging people to let Jesus in and in return they are exercising the power we have given them and telling us to keep it to ourselves.

I'm not saying people should not have a relationship with Christ or that it should not be intimate. I'm all for that and enjoy it myself. Well, I don't always enjoy it, as at times knowing God is hard, painful and full of a lot of dying, but that's my fault, not His.

What I am saying is this: we've made following Christ this personal choice that puts the individual in charge. The fact is, Jesus is Lord. Folks may not agree, but it does not change the facts. If we know his Lordship to be true then we should live like it. We can be full of grace toward others and we don't need to shove the gospel down anyone's throat, but we can be confident and unapologetic as we engage society.

Jesus transforms the personal lives of individuals, but only when they bow at his feet and cast their life into his hands. We can start by living this submission to him and nothing else in our own lives. The rest will take care of itself.

You see, when you put Jesus on the throne you start to do things that don't respect the wishes of society. You eat with tax collectors, you heal the sick, you care for widows and orphans, you drive out the moneychangers in the temple and you feed the hungry. You make fools of Pharisees and you cast out demons.

Whatever you do in his name, you will do it with authority and with grace and the world around you will have no choice but to take notice. It can't help it because it's not personal anymore. It's Jesus, manifested to a sick and dying world in power and in love. That's not a personal choice but rather a reality with which all must grapple and come to terms with.

You might end-up on a cross just like he did, but it will be OK, because your prayer will be 'not my will, Lord, but yours be done'.