Give Me Jesus

I'm tired. Prayers have been said and my child is tucked into bed. I was on my way but then remembered that I was going to write a blog entry tonight.

I spent tonight writing. I've been working on a book. I have it all outlined and it just seems like it should be simply fill-in-the-blanks but more often than not I find myself studying for hours just to crank out a sentence. Tonight I was really productive and put down a couple of paragraphs.

What I really wanted to share though was an article written by Frank Viola,The Deep Ecclesiology of the Body

This is is one of those articles that I find myself shaking my head in agreement with quite a bit. I enjoyed reading about his perspective have changed throughout his religious experiences. He warns:

"Attention young Christians: You can get ridiculously obsessed with rapture fever! I was taught, “This is important. We have to know prophecy. We must study prophecy. 90% of the Bible is prophecy. We have a duty to understand it.” Let me confess. I was pathetically into eschatology. So much so that I could discuss it for hours with wild-eyed fascination."

"But I made a discovery. That all of those hours I spent pouring over Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation . . . trying to put the end-time puzzle together . . . did not help me one iota to come to know my Lord better. It was largely an academic, intellectual exercise. And a sterile one at that!"

Frank admits that he stopped studying end-times prophecy. I'm not quite ready to give it up but I do know where he is coming from. Every Sunday afternoon I get together online with friends and we churn through this stuff. And in my personal studying for a long time I was constantly going through Revelation and Daniel. I've learned a lot and there have been some specific instances where God has given me direct insight into certain things so it hasn't been a completely fruitless endeavor. However my experience is that too often we can so bogged down in the details and questions that we can't see the forest for the trees. The forest is Jesus. Revelation 19:10 says that "The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy"

Frank's journey seems to have lead him though to the same place I've found myself - Jesus.

"I made the striking discovery that I don’t need an it. I have never needed an it. And I will never need an it. Christian it’s . . . no matter how good or true . . . eventually wear out, run dry, and become tiresome.

I don’t need an it . . . I need a Him!

And so do you!

We do not need things. We need Jesus Christ!"

When I was in a religion I was taught that the theme of the Bible "The vindication of Jehovah's sovereignty by means of the Messianic Kingdom." It may be true - and it's truly a mouthful. I wonder why can't the theme just be "Jesus"?

Jesus was absolutely central to the early Church. The saddest thing in religions in how Jesus is minimized, just given lip service, and pushed to the side. We have spiritual ADD and can't focus on the most important element to our faith - Jesus.

We were talking to some friends recently from the same religious background as us. They were talking about their experience with one of the local mega-churches. They remarked how it had a club for everything, like "kayaking for the Lord". I've got no problem with kayaking but I just wonder about the ratio between kayaking and Jesus that the group provides.

One of the most common charges leveled at Jehovah's Witnesses is "You don't believe in Jesus". Ask a JW if this is true and they will scoff and say, "Of course we believe in Jesus." I know I used to. Afterall our religious literature had numerous references to Jesus.

But one of things I'm seeing is that while we did speak about Jesus he kind of got hidden in the mixed. It is almost like there was a fear of giving too much attention to Jesus. The general focus was on the organization, organization, organization. We focused on the body so much that we practically beheaded the Christ. What is worse is that we supplanted the leadership of Christ with some Frankenstein head construct called "the Faithful and Discreet Slave".

Christianity without Christ is a very empty faith indeed. What's the point?

You can keep your religion just give me Jesus.

Good night Friends.