Saturday, January 2, 2010

My 'Personal' Savior


I am becoming so weary with the attitude of the Western Christian. This idea of a 'personal' relationship with God being the only important thing is really just disgusting to me. I just recently had a somewhat serious discussion with a friend on this very topic. The conclusion my friend came up with was that her personal relationship with Jesus is really all that is important in this world. With this conclusion, this person blatantly admitted to not caring about the rest of the world. It is this selfish attitude that most religion has toward the world that makes me want to give up on the establishment of the Church altogether. I am not at all saying that a personal relationship with Jesus is not important, and at some point I probably have argued that point for myself, but as I am rediscovering Scripture and Jesus; I cannot help but believe that God came to earth to offer so much more than a simple selfish 'personal relationship'. It is interesting how our Western culture has so easily poisoned what scripture has to say on relationships. If a first century Christian heard that phrase, he or she most likely would not have understood what it meant, because they believed that Jesus didn't come to reconcile us individually back to Himself. God came to reconcile the world back to Himself. This can be somewhat shocking to people, but God did not come back to just reconcile Humans. Humanity was just one of the receivers of this restoration God offered.

When we all begin to understand that this restoration of the relationship between the world and God is not just 'personal'. We just might begin see that we have much more to offer not only to God, but to the world. Personal relationships are important, but let us not base our entire theology on something that is not even referenced in Scripture.

1 comment:

  1. Check out the book Waking The Dead. It is filled with this idea about how the Western Church today is stagnant. Plus it gives personal applications for your own life. Very good book.

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