One of the pastors at my church gave a message called "When Doing Church Won't Do" based on the message to the church at Ephesus in Revelation Chapter 2. It really rocked my world.
I was already wrestling with questions about how we should live as Christians. If you are the typical Christian in America, you attend a worship service once a week (a couple of times if you are super-spiritual!), you give some money to the church and other ministry causes, you try and live a Godly life by being a good friend, spouse, and parent, and ever so often you do something to help someone in need.
These are all good things that God expects from us. However, it's hard to match this idea of the Christian life with the words of Jesus in the Gospels: "Take up your cross and follow me", "Sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, then follow me", "No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields--and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life."
There seems to me to be a disconnect between the American Christian life and the Bible. To live the life that Jesus describes would mean radical decisions. And it seems there are so few people willing to take this road.
Every time I make peace with my posh Christian life, I go on a mission trip or encounter a serious need and it all blows up again. If anyone has reconciled this, please share your thoughts for the rest of us!
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