Day 2334 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.
Philippians 2:21 NIV
As we've discussed a lot recently, our world thrives on selfishness. People are all about what they want and what they think is best for them. Our world wants fame. Our world wants what's easy. Our world wants riches, and glory, and comfort, and satisfaction. Sadly, it's gotten to the point that some have even twisted the Gospel to meet those desires. They've taken it upon themselves to spin the message of the Bible to sound more like what people want to hear so that they can fill seats and feel like they're winning people over to the Lord. But that stuff isn't helping people find Christ, it's helping them stay where they are.
If you're following a Gospel that makes you comfortable where you are and how you're currently living then you're not following the Gospel of Christ. If you hear a Gospel that sounds all warm and fuzzy then there's a problem. If you hear a Gospel that says life will be easy and you'll find all the health, wealth, and comfort that you want then there's a problem. If you hear a Gospel that allows you to focus on yourself and do as you please then there's a problem. A Gospel that caters to our wants and preferences is no Gospel at all. It's nothing but a lie made up to make us feel good about putting ourselves first.
The message of the Gospel is that God loved us so much that He sent Christ to save us from ourselves and our wicked ways. Not that He loves us so much that He just lets us do as we please without consequence. Not that He doesn't care if we slip up and sin now and then. Not that He wants us to focus on every desire our deceitful hearts can dream of while ignoring the calling of Jesus Christ. We cannot possibly serve Him and still look out for what we want. This has nothing to do with us! We're the broken vessels that He died to put back together. This is about sharing that message with the world so that He can do the same for them.
Looking to our own selfish and sinful interests is what started this whole mess to begin with! Adam and Eve didn't want to listen to God, they wanted to do what they wanted. Sound familiar? That's still how our world chooses to behave. Nobody wants to restrain themselves to following Christ. That's too hard. That's too limited. That's not fun or exciting or enjoyable. So we pick ourselves over Christ. We follow the paths that look fun and make the decisions that allow us to stay comfortable. We set our sights on living our best life now and figure that we'll worry about eternity later.
Friends, like it or not that eternity is still coming, and it's closer every single day. Living to make these lives the best part of this journey makes no sense. This is temporary. Heaven and hell are eternal. Continuing to live for ourselves and ignore the call to repent and leave our selfish ways behind will land us in a kind of never ending suffering that we don't want any part of. But heeding that call, putting ourselves aside, and living to humbly serve Christ and make Him known in this place will lead us somewhere incomparably greater.
As we talked about yesterday, the message of Christ is meant to change us. It's meant to save us from our wicked ways and lead us in a better direction. We can't stay where we are and think we're following Christ. We can't keep doing the very things that put Him on the cross and think that we've been born again. We can't continue living like the world and think that we're doing good enough. Putting ourselves first and living to fulfill our desires will never be good enough. It will only keep getting us what we had before we met Christ. Why settle for that when He offers us so much more?
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