it's not about you

Sorry for not updating for a while. I kept debating about what my next post would be about instead of just doing it and then, poof, two weeks or so had gone by.

About a week or two ago I finished "Radical" by David Platt. I highly recommend the book. I think one of the biggest messages I took from the text (although I learned a lot) is that nothing is about you.

Here was a passage from the book that really spoke out to me:

If you were to ask the average Christian sitting in a worship service on Sunday morning to summarize the message of Christianity, you would most likely hear something along the lines of "The message of Christianity is that God loves me." Or someone might say, "The message of Christianity is that God loves me enough to send his son, Jesus, to die for me."

As wonderful as this sentiment sounds, is it biblical? Isn't it incomplete, based on what we have seen in the Bible? "God loves me" is not the essence of biblical Christianity. Because if "God loves me" is the message of Christianity, then who is the object of Christianity?

God loves me.
Me.
Christianity's object is me.

Therefore, when I look for a church, I look for the music that best fits me and the programs that best cater to me and my family. When I make plans for my life and career, it is about what works best for me and my family. When I consider the house I will live in, the car I will drive, the clothes I will wear, the way I will live, I will choose according to what is best for me. This is the version of Christianity that largely prevails in our culture.

But it is not biblical Christianity.

The message of biblical Christianity is not "God loves me, period," as if we were the object of our own faith. The message of biblical Christianity is "God loves me so that I might make him- his ways, his salvation, his glory, and his greatness- known among all nations." Now God is the object of our faith, and Christianity centers around him. We are not the end of the gospel, God is.

What do you take from that?

I am amazed at the amount of options you can put on automobiles these days. Nearly every car has seemingly 10,000 choices from cloth to leather seats, from XM radio to TVs, to paint, to moonroofs, etc. And everyone wants something different. At times, we can get so caught up in what’s in/on a car that we forget that its only real purpose is to move us from one place to another.

I find myself, and maybe you do to, so caught up in the “options” in not only my faith, but also my life, that I forget the purpose. We are here to worship God and spread his name and glory across the globe. Nothing else matters. I am challenging myself to strip my faith down to what/where God is calling me. My goal is to focus less about how comfortable I am on the ride and to focus more on the destination.