X-tians

What happens when you take the Christ out of Christians?

I wish I could say I did not know the answer.

In "Draw close to Jehovah," by the JW group, I read today how they replace the name "Jesus Christ" with the unworshipped idea of a simple "ransom." Thus they can say (with scriptural basis even) "meditate on the ransom, and you will find yourself growing closer to Jehovah God in your heart."

But Jesus is more than just a promise, or an exchange, or a good deed. He is a person. And most importantly, He is God--worthy of all our worship.

"He who has not the Son has not the Father. But he who has the Son has the Father as well."

What is this effort to take Christ out of our worship??

I am sorry to say this, but in all of our hearts there is a tendency to resent Jesus for the attention he claims He deserves. In fact, I find it a daily struggle to surrender all the thoughts and practices of my "religion" and submit and subdue them under the authority of the person Jesus Christ whom I long to treat with respect.

Here are the noble pursuits our religion, Christianity, has given us, through Christ:

--WAlking by faith, not sight. Can we trust in an unseen reality? Can we believe in things we have not yet received evidence for? What a challenge it is to do so!

--BElieving in promises or cause-effect relationships as given in the bible. We believe that we will reap what we sow, a teacher of experience which makes us more wise for life. We believe in prayer, that it helps because God answers. We believe that if we can just be healed of our hurts, it will be easy to obey God, and so we ask for a healing, according to the promises in the bible. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted...". Just another principle we grow in knowledge about.

--IMmersing ourselves in the word. While many of us read our bibles and appreciate the perfectly-timed answer we have received for our current need, many people still read the bible for satisfaction of sinful choices, for making checklists of how much you have accomplished, for impressing others with your extensive knowledge.

--GOing to church. It's commanded in the bible and we all know that since God wants us there so that He can grow close to us, we better do it so that we can be useful to Him and obey Him during the week as we interact with others.

--etc.

Scores of faithful and fledging churches alike could potentially write sermon after sermon on such noble topics as these. And, with Jesus at the center like He ought to be, these things have worth. Faith matters to God. But not if you don't put your trust every day in Jesus. Trusting that God comes near to the brokenhearted is important, but not if you don't have a reconcilation with God through Jesus' broken body. Reading the bible is spiritual for some purposes, but a man can still ignore or feel contempt to think that Jesus would wash away their favorite sins. When we are stuck with a problem and God gives us a miracle answer, our faith is built, but what exactly are we relaxing in to? Are we trusting in a miracle experience? In a promise? In ourselves that we can receive an answer?

Is the statement of our belief in God simply something akin to "God has been proven to me to be a genie-in-a-bottle. He was right all along!" God is more than a force of the universe, a cause and effect relationship. A granter of wishes. A perceiver of needs. A source of truth. A checklist of "good people do these things in my book."

My concern is for the self-proclaimed or actual Christians who are busy attending to the lower things of our Christianity, while forgetting to look up the whole time. A religion of business, of knowledge, of meditations, of works, of becoming acquainted with the system's principles.

What truly matters beyond Jesus Christ? We are all in need of every good thing, but lack it, and He is rich in every good thing, and has stored it in the person of Jesus. God so loved the world that He gave his one and only son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.

Is this the reason why you became a Christian? Did the message change for you, once you joined your local assembly?

If the message is still the same, then you are in a church that God approves. However if you are in a church which does not attend to loving the person Jesus first and foremost, then you ought to reconsider. What else is more important? I dare say, how can anything be more important? Faith, bible reading, cause-and-effect testing, knowledge, these things ONLY have value if you first have understood what it means to be a Christian. John 3:16--when is the last time your church has asked you to work and strive this week to love Jesus as He has loved us? Just your heart, and His??

So many approvable, strictly Christian phenomenas of behaviors and beliefs... yet only one God who makes all of them have any meaning, or reason for acquisition.

Is Jesus lost from the personal, private practice of your religion? I know the feeling. I am only beginning to see that these things, while pleasureable and satisfying, are simply irrelevant if I were ever forced to choose between them, and Jesus Christ.