Pop Culture Jesus

I was struck today while driving, by the happy-clappy McJesus slapped on the bumper of many cars in America. The one that got me today was the milk ad turned Jesus pusher..."got Jesus?"

Is it just me, or does this super trivialize this God-man? It speaks so casually of a life lived with much work, and purpose, as if it's as easy as pie to "have Jesus." I don't mean work like working your way to heaven, but the work it takes to actually represent who Jesus is, rather then just slap him on as a label for our life and call it good.

I believe the spirit of the command to not "take the name of the Lord in vain..." is less about using it as an exclamation and more about claiming His name casually. Calling ourselves His without an awe of who He actually is. The more I look at Him and how He loved and endured humanity, walking among us, I'm in awe of Him. He didn't just endure us, He loved us, and forgave the worst in all of us. He grieved with compassion over our failures, and died for them. He asked His followers to love like Him to see humanity as He does. As I study Him and seek to follow Him in His love I have experienced rejection, misunderstanding, open hearted interest, and skepticism. It can leave you feeling alone, excited, frustrated, joyful, and grieved. It leaves you anything but feeling cavalier and casual about who Jesus is, and throwing His name around casually. He is awe inspiring when you really study Him and seek to love like Him. Makes me want to only speak of Him with total reverence and respect. I was taught in Christian school to capitalize even the pronouns that refer to Him. I have done it my whole life out of the habit of "supposed to". After rejecting doing things out of "supposed to" I still capitalize His pronouns out of pure amazement and reverence for this amazing God-man.

I fall so short of Him and yet I have felt the great joy when I have grasped His heart in a situation that I pursue more of it. Humble, awed, and silenced by Him.

Tough as Nails

I gotta start by saying that, this past year I have seen that Jesus is the biggest, baddest, tough guy that ever existed. My friend uses more colorful language to describe Him, but though I can appreciate his point, I fear some readers would shut their ears over vocabulary, and my hope is to open some ears.
Seriously though, Jesus walked around loving people ALL the time, and not letting His love for them compromise His purpose and path. That is CRAZY hard to do!!
So He didn't have an arrogant "I-don't-give-a-crap-about-you" attitude, but He didn't let people's issues mess with Him, and the truth, and His path of love. So whether they loved Him and showered Him with adoration, whether they slandered or misjudged Him, whether they attacked Him with jealous accusations and eventually beat and murdered Him....He continued on His path of love. Undeterred by peoples issues.
He could see people as the children we are and loved us in our issues and brokenness. He told us to be as children and love like that. See others as He saw them. When I grasped that this last year, I was able to walk undeterred from love, with a clear conscious, not questioning my direction or purpose. I could let go of needing people's approval and wavering in direction when they stood against me. I tasted what it is to love free from self consciousness. You can love anyone when you take worry over self out of the picture. My self is judged, condemned, justified and redeemed by Jesus alone. "No weapon formed against can stand." To grasp and hold this truth is to follow in Jesus' big, bad, tough guy existence, and be able to love the way He did. I have experienced this and want to pursue after more of it for the rest of my days. It is beautiful, like nothing else you've ever experienced.
This is not saying that He didn't feel the pain that comes when other's strike, but there lies the greatest beauty of it........He loved through the pain. I suffered greatly in heart this past year but sought to love through it. Not denying it and suppressing it, but feeling it all, and letting it break my heart and choosing to pick back up and pursue love. To forgive when forgiveness isn't requested, to choose peace as far as I am able. I would have been overwhelmed, and my heart blackened, had the Lord not used people that have eyes to see Him, to help me see.
I want to pursue to live the next half of my life, if given that, from this center..... this amazing beautiful heart soaring love that Jesus existed in. Jesus is as tough as the nails that pierced Him.

Freed by Captivating Love

A dear brother and I are discussing the subject of love of others and freedom. We are pressed between the strength of freedom from concern for others approval and the fact that to love others is to limit ones freedom or alter ones course for the sake of love of others.
I look at Jesus and how he loved. His love was strong and not wishy washy, he was not weak and in need of approval, but He loved with purity and selflessness. So when people came against him for things he did that they disagreed with he kept course because He knew his motives were pure. So when they called him a drunk and glutton and accused him of hanging with the wrong crowd he didn't change his course because he was causing no harm but living in love.
He forsook his freedom for "alone time" when the crowds pursued him. He limited his freedom to defend himself when the religious accused him falsely in order to bring freedom to all humanity. He was completely unique from us. He was separate in the way He radically selflessly loved broken humanity.
It seems that continuous examination of heart motive as we walk in freedom, or limit our freedom for the sake of love, is the path we should walk. I'm thinking that having discernment of each situation we are in, and what the people concerned need in that particular situation is the good work we are to do. Love doesn't always mean we capitulate to what people desire of us. Sometimes it's more loving to endure their disapproval then to acquiesce to their expectations.
Honesty is key...truth is the light of life.
I'm free....and love captivates me.....

Strong Freedom

I used to govern myself with rules and restrictions I put around me in order to guard against missteps. I had much fear of the mistakes I was capable of making, not just mistakes that are good lessons, but mistakes that are destructive to people I love. This lead to a very small life with a lot of self focus.
The idea that freedom builds strength in individuals began to form in my thinking a few years ago. It was a theory or concept in my mind that I believed must be true, but had not yet tested it fully. I began in small ways allowing myself freedom and found it was strengthening to exercise discernment and self examination as I walked in previously restricted areas.
I stepped out in more freedom that was scary and challenging. I faced temptation greatly at first, but fought it off with the truth at every turn. I pushed beyond the temptation and into love of others over self indulgence and have found that love overcomes the dark.
I have embraced the fact that in Christ I have a nature like His, and "He that is in me is greater than he that is in the world." The destructive nature has been put to death with Jesus and I don't desire the things that cause destruction. They continue to try to pull at me, but the truth of who I am, and the love I desire to walk in, is greater and overcomes.
So I find much strength in stepping out in the freedom that Jesus won for me. No fear, means I can walk in faith and love.
I can refocus my attention on the love of others rather then obsessing about myself. I check on my motives continually. I seek honesty with myself always. Truth, I have found, is the beautiful key to freedom.

Unholy

It makes me mad that you make me cry!
It makes me mad that you move on in
your careless fear without even batting an eye.
It makes me mad that I'm condemned when I react
to your attacks.
Isn't that how abusers manipulate their abused?
It makes me more then mad when you do all this in the name of Jesus
Now that's what I call blasphemous!

It Takes Time...

My anger dissolves into tears on my pillow.
Or is it the other way around?
Tears boiling up into biting words...
Waiting for you to get the courage to love
unconditionally....with abundant grace.
Waiting for beauty to come from these ashes.
Instead you fan the flame,
nearly blackening the remnant that remains.
You've no idea the lashes your fear inflicts,
and when I cry out in anger from the pain
you condemn me as the sinner who must repent!
Forgiveness where are you?
At times I feel you near but
then you slide down my cheeks
with the tears on my pillow.

Here's some Good News!

In Psalm 96:13 it says: He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness.
It strikes me as I read this that we do not fathom His righteousness or faithfulness. It is so far beyond our thinking of righteousness.
His righteousness is perfect.
He sees the injustice and all the suffering we cause each other on this earth, and says it needs to be judged. He also sees so much deeper.... how it's the suffering of one person that causes them to bring suffering on another. He sees how we are all here caught in this cycle of suffering and death, causing it and being victim to it. Do we see that we are part of what's killing us. He saw it more clearly than all of us, and inserted Himself into our suffering, and took the judgement for it all upon Himself to save us from it. How perfect is that righteousness. To see someones darkness and act in love toward them by sacrificing Himself for others salvation. Instead of condemning us He saves us, instead of judging us He frees us. How beautiful is that righteousness.