Three Stops Short of Savior
The two teenagers who would one day become my parents walked the halls of the same high school for three years. My dad was a little different in his particular self-confidence, and my mother was a little shy. She didn't approach him until she sensed and need – for a hairdryer. He was a salesman at Sears. The rest is history.
Likewise, we don't expose ourselves to the risk and have love real relationship until we understand the need for it. Even for Someone Whose offered virtues should have been as apparent as those of Christ, contemporary humans were more ready with excuses than embraces. Knowing the end from the beginning, the One Whom Isaiah 9:6 called, "wonderful, Counselor" pointed out the pattern. He gave fair warning in Luke 13:25-26 by voicing the thinking of those who wanted only so much of Him. Perhaps the same objections to true, total dependence on Christ are offered today.
(1) "Houston, we have a problem." The first offramp Jesus points to that stops us short of acknowledging Him as Savior on Whom we are absolutely dependent seduces us with the lights and noise of a passionate plea. Jesus calls out to the thinking of many who stop short in Luke 13:25. Seemingly, this verse offers a promising start to real renewal as those Jesus envisions, "begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, 'Lord, Lord, open for us.'" In context, these are those who protest at the Day of Judgment that they want to enter into life with Him which they never chose by faith while on Earth. Duly noted, but even here, we often stop with stating the problem emphatically. In a culture very protective of any perceived victim, we may even congratulate ourselves for the vehemence with which we proclaim that we are on the outside and want in, for the passion with which we let people know we want more out of life.
We can't stop there. We have to follow through, walk through the door while, by grace, it will still be opened, and trust Christ both with our eternal destination and with thousands of micro decisions between now and Judgment Day. Paradoxically, true ongoing trust in Christ may involve laying aside the victimhood or volume to which the culture is so conditioned to respond. Venting within earshot of our friends or the largest social media audience might be on the way out. That habit may gradually give way to walking by faith with increasing awareness of Christ empathy, and finding that royal audience enough. Passing up the offramp of a human audience to echo our plight may be saving our deepest, most desperate pleas for Him alone and trusting that He hears
(2) Opting for cultural graces. The second offramp Jesus points to that stops us short of acknowledging Him as Savior on whom we are absolutely dependent is seductive for the opposite reasons. In place of the light and noise of real or perceived crisis, this offramp short of living in true dependence upon Christ, if it were a literal interstate exit, would offer clear markings, a level grade, clean restrooms, and a healthy restaurant with a place for the kids to play. The spiritual equivalent which seduces us to stop short of depending completely on Christ trades that for relying on what the nicest people in a given culture value. These are the people Jesus says in Luke 13:26, "will begin to say, 'We ate and drank in Your presence.'" Jesus says that during His earthly ministry, He didn't have a place to lay His head. (Matthew 8:20) He was not hosting these gatherings. These with the Luke 13:26 protest were. The people who find that they took an offramp before honoring Christ with their complete surrender are the very ones who were quickest with the social niceties, even when they involved material sacrifice.
Is it possible that we are sincerely polite, and yet without saving faith in Christ? Is it possible that our checkbook shows we are willing to sacrifice our pleasures to make others comfortable, even to honor Christ by doing so, and yet we had not surrendered completely to Him? After all, if we see ourselves as host, the initiative is ours. We can go, and can give, up to the limits of our individual discretion with what we call our own. This, while applauded by our neighbors for weaving a more civil society, is far from true surrender to Christ. So close superficially, yet so far in the still-in-control condition of our hearts. Even for those who have trusted Him with our eternal destination, there may still be rooms in our hearts we would keep locked to Him as invited guests on our terms.
(3) Jesus, our soundtrack. Third, Jesus points out that a soundtrack of His own words can, ironically, distract us from taking the exit from life's ordinary thoroughfare to pursue Him as our priority. Continuing in Luke 13:26, Christ exposes those who would claim to be part of His Kingdom because they will tell Him, "You taught in our streets." These are the people wise enough to know He said the thought-provoking. These are the people open-minded enough to recognize Him as deserving a hearing. They occupied the physical space within which the soundwaves of His Word traveled. They opted to focus on His message rather than something else, but their appreciation for Jesus' Greatest Quotations was not the same as acknowledging the Source of approved words as the Source of all meaningful life.
Do we do any better? Flannery O'Connor said her native South was a Jesus-haunted culture, but I suspect this characterization hovers far beyond the Mason-Dixon line. Even where we set aside for biblical encounters physical spaces, as in church, or the calendar spaces we leave for prayer or Bible reading, are we really any more present than the protesters of Luke 13:26 who happened to occupy the same streets? The devil finds biblical phrasing compelling enough to quote it. (Matthew 4:1-10) How many, in the phrasing of CS Lewis, have acquired just enough of Christ's teaching to be immune to the real thing? Even for those who have been "infected" with Christ's teaching enough that the outcome of the "disease" is certain to send us to the Heavenly Sanatorium, do we expect to hear His voice in everyday earthly decisions telling us whether to go to the right or to the left? (Isaiah 30:21)
This week, I was convicted of how diametrically I switch from "Bible mode" in writing my daily blog on a verse in Luke's Gospel to what I have sloppily allowed myself to think of as "real world" concerns of jobseeking. Does He not own both parts of my morning? Does He not parse my thoughts, and our thoughts, with as much acuity for idolatrous self-justification as He employed in Luke 13?
Likewise, we don't expose ourselves to the risk and have love real relationship until we understand the need for it. Even for Someone Whose offered virtues should have been as apparent as those of Christ, contemporary humans were more ready with excuses than embraces. Knowing the end from the beginning, the One Whom Isaiah 9:6 called, "wonderful, Counselor" pointed out the pattern. He gave fair warning in Luke 13:25-26 by voicing the thinking of those who wanted only so much of Him. Perhaps the same objections to true, total dependence on Christ are offered today.
(1) "Houston, we have a problem." The first offramp Jesus points to that stops us short of acknowledging Him as Savior on Whom we are absolutely dependent seduces us with the lights and noise of a passionate plea. Jesus calls out to the thinking of many who stop short in Luke 13:25. Seemingly, this verse offers a promising start to real renewal as those Jesus envisions, "begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, 'Lord, Lord, open for us.'" In context, these are those who protest at the Day of Judgment that they want to enter into life with Him which they never chose by faith while on Earth. Duly noted, but even here, we often stop with stating the problem emphatically. In a culture very protective of any perceived victim, we may even congratulate ourselves for the vehemence with which we proclaim that we are on the outside and want in, for the passion with which we let people know we want more out of life.
We can't stop there. We have to follow through, walk through the door while, by grace, it will still be opened, and trust Christ both with our eternal destination and with thousands of micro decisions between now and Judgment Day. Paradoxically, true ongoing trust in Christ may involve laying aside the victimhood or volume to which the culture is so conditioned to respond. Venting within earshot of our friends or the largest social media audience might be on the way out. That habit may gradually give way to walking by faith with increasing awareness of Christ empathy, and finding that royal audience enough. Passing up the offramp of a human audience to echo our plight may be saving our deepest, most desperate pleas for Him alone and trusting that He hears
(2) Opting for cultural graces. The second offramp Jesus points to that stops us short of acknowledging Him as Savior on whom we are absolutely dependent is seductive for the opposite reasons. In place of the light and noise of real or perceived crisis, this offramp short of living in true dependence upon Christ, if it were a literal interstate exit, would offer clear markings, a level grade, clean restrooms, and a healthy restaurant with a place for the kids to play. The spiritual equivalent which seduces us to stop short of depending completely on Christ trades that for relying on what the nicest people in a given culture value. These are the people Jesus says in Luke 13:26, "will begin to say, 'We ate and drank in Your presence.'" Jesus says that during His earthly ministry, He didn't have a place to lay His head. (Matthew 8:20) He was not hosting these gatherings. These with the Luke 13:26 protest were. The people who find that they took an offramp before honoring Christ with their complete surrender are the very ones who were quickest with the social niceties, even when they involved material sacrifice.
Is it possible that we are sincerely polite, and yet without saving faith in Christ? Is it possible that our checkbook shows we are willing to sacrifice our pleasures to make others comfortable, even to honor Christ by doing so, and yet we had not surrendered completely to Him? After all, if we see ourselves as host, the initiative is ours. We can go, and can give, up to the limits of our individual discretion with what we call our own. This, while applauded by our neighbors for weaving a more civil society, is far from true surrender to Christ. So close superficially, yet so far in the still-in-control condition of our hearts. Even for those who have trusted Him with our eternal destination, there may still be rooms in our hearts we would keep locked to Him as invited guests on our terms.
(3) Jesus, our soundtrack. Third, Jesus points out that a soundtrack of His own words can, ironically, distract us from taking the exit from life's ordinary thoroughfare to pursue Him as our priority. Continuing in Luke 13:26, Christ exposes those who would claim to be part of His Kingdom because they will tell Him, "You taught in our streets." These are the people wise enough to know He said the thought-provoking. These are the people open-minded enough to recognize Him as deserving a hearing. They occupied the physical space within which the soundwaves of His Word traveled. They opted to focus on His message rather than something else, but their appreciation for Jesus' Greatest Quotations was not the same as acknowledging the Source of approved words as the Source of all meaningful life.
Do we do any better? Flannery O'Connor said her native South was a Jesus-haunted culture, but I suspect this characterization hovers far beyond the Mason-Dixon line. Even where we set aside for biblical encounters physical spaces, as in church, or the calendar spaces we leave for prayer or Bible reading, are we really any more present than the protesters of Luke 13:26 who happened to occupy the same streets? The devil finds biblical phrasing compelling enough to quote it. (Matthew 4:1-10) How many, in the phrasing of CS Lewis, have acquired just enough of Christ's teaching to be immune to the real thing? Even for those who have been "infected" with Christ's teaching enough that the outcome of the "disease" is certain to send us to the Heavenly Sanatorium, do we expect to hear His voice in everyday earthly decisions telling us whether to go to the right or to the left? (Isaiah 30:21)
This week, I was convicted of how diametrically I switch from "Bible mode" in writing my daily blog on a verse in Luke's Gospel to what I have sloppily allowed myself to think of as "real world" concerns of jobseeking. Does He not own both parts of my morning? Does He not parse my thoughts, and our thoughts, with as much acuity for idolatrous self-justification as He employed in Luke 13?
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