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David McElroy

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What if Jesus was serious about all those things He told His followers?

By David McElroy · July 22, 2012

Do modern Christians believe Jesus meant what He said in the Gospels? Do they believe they’re obligated to follow His commands? Or has American Christianity become something that has little to do with the words that the Son of God left for us?

In the last 22 years, the number of people who say they have no religious affiliation has more than tripled in this country. In 1990, 6 percent of people answered “None” when asked their religion, but it’s now up to 19 percent, according to one new study. Another survey from earlier this year shows that roughly 78 percent of people claim to be Christians.

When I look at the state of the country (and of the world), the question I have is why so many people still profess to faith in Jesus Christ. When people say they don’t believe, I have to confess that I don’t blame them — based on the example they see from most of us who call ourselves Christians. How many of those 78 percent of Americans actually believe? And how many are just attending services because they always have? And how many of the remainder just call themselves Christians because they happened to grow up in a church and never discarded the label?

I have a radical idea. Why don’t those of us who call ourselves Christians decide whether we believe Jesus or not? If we don’t believe Him, why keep up the pretense? Why not join the ranks of those who are atheist or agnostic or just plain indifferent?

But if we really do believe Him, why don’t we take what He said seriously?

Honestly, I don’t believe that most of the people in our churches today take Him seriously. They like being affiliated with a religion and they like the idea of a “spiritual Santa Claus” who they can ask to give them things. But they’re not very interested in believing the words Jesus left for us.

When I look at the modern church, I don’t see a lot of love for our enemies. In fact, I see a tremendous amount of hatred for those who hate us. This might make sense in human terms, but it’s not what Jesus taught us. For instance, Luke 6:27-36 starts with these two verses:

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”

This is difficult to read and think about, because I frequently don’t love the people I should love. Do I believe it’s OK to ignore Jesus’ command about this? What about the angry preachers and lay Christians who curse those who dislike us and are full of hatred for those who disagree with us? How can they reconcile their lack of love with Jesus’ words?

The last command that Jesus leaves His followers with at the end of Matthew is known as the Great Commission, because he is ordering His followers to spread the Good News to those around the world those who haven’t heard it:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The vast majority of people around this world have still never even heard of Jesus. In some of the countries where they live, it’s illegal for people to convert from the religion of their birth, but even in countries where preaching the Gospel is legal, American Christians have made it a very low priority. We build expensive new buildings for ourselves here. We build huge “family life centers” — which is just a code name for recreation areas where we don’t have to mix with “those people” — but we spend almost nothing on the rest of the world.

I’m told that of every $100 that an American Christian earns, we spend approximately a nickel of it helping those around the world and spreading the Gospel to those who haven’t heard it. So let’s be honest. Do we believe that we’re obligated to obey Jesus? Or do we think His command about this was optional?

Jesus spoke frequently about feeding people and giving to others. For instance, in Luke 3, Jesus was specific about sharing food and clothing:

And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.”

We are surrounded by an excess of cheap food, while there are people around the world starving to death. Was Jesus serious about us helping them? Did He really mean we’re responsible for helping to improve the lives of the poor, both here and abroad? We don’t act as though we believe it, because we sit in our beautiful, expensive churches — spending money on programs for ourselves — while people starve around the world. Are we going to take Him seriously about this?

Jesus fed people and healed people and changed lives. We tend to think of things Jesus did as being things we couldn’t possibly accomplish today — except through our modern, pragmatic methods — but Jesus told us otherwise. In John 14, He was pretty explicit. For instance, here are verses 12-14:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”

So He claims that if we ask Him, He’s going to enable us to do great works — “greater works than these” — through the Holy Spirit. In other words, if we’re not seeing people’s lives changed and great things happening in our ministries, we have no excuse, assuming we believe He was telling the truth.

Jesus told us quite bluntly that we could have whatever we asked for through the power of faith. There’s no mistaking the meaning of the words of Mark 11:22-24:

And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

Do we believe that? Was Jesus serious when He said it? Do we take Him seriously? Or is it easier to just ignore His words that require actual faith on our part, as opposed to intellectual knowledge and lip service?

If you’re not a Christian and you believe everything I’ve quoted here is nonsense, I don’t blame you. The people who call themselves Christians haven’t been taking the words seriously, so why should you?

If you are a Christian, though, and you’re not taking Jesus’ words seriously — or if you just don’t believe them — why bother to call yourself a Christian?

If we don’t believe this stuff, let’s quit playing church and pretending that it matters. Let’s join that ever-increasing number who say they have no religious affiliation. But if we do believe it’s true — if we believe that Jesus’ words represent Truth with a capital T — it’s time for us to change our lives. It’s time for us to get out of our comfortable pews and start living the Gospel as Jesus preached it.

When the rich young man came to Jesus, according to Luke 18:17-31, he asked the teacher what he had to do to be saved. Jesus told him some moral basics and the man said he already did those things. Scripture tells us that Jesus looked at the young man and “loved him,” telling him that he needed to sell all that he had and give the money to the poor. But because he was wealthy, the man was unwilling to obey and went away sad.

By the standards of the entire world, those of us in this country are exceedingly wealthy, especially those who are educated enough to be reading here. I think we’re just like that rich man. We’re too in love with what we have — our lifestyles and houses and cars and retirement — to follow Jesus. It’s not that there’s anything inherently wrong with those things, but if we love them more than we desire to follow Jesus, we have a serious problem at the heart of the faith we claim to have.

Do we really believe Jesus? If we do, let’s start taking His words seriously. If we believe Him, we’ll obey Him. If we’re not obeying Him, we clearly don’t believe. So which is it going to be?

Note: The photos accompanying this article were all taken last month in Cambodia during ministry work with a group called TransformAsia.

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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