Jesus 50% Off
Has the church sometimes advertised Christianity like a product On Sale?
I recently had a conversation with some friends that focused on the ways we have cheapened discipleship, and I immediately connected it to Black Friday and our insatiable desire for a good deal.
We always desire to find something for the lowest possible price. We wait in line for hours on the day after Thanksgiving and many people consider it a joy, well worth their time. We scour ads to see just how many percentage points off we can find our favorite items for. In our culture, cheaper is always better.
I think the church has sometimes been guilty of promoting the same message.
We have some times cheapened the Gospel to the minimum level in hopes of getting the greatest number of people into the Kingdom.
We have (rightly) been told the importance of evangelism. We want Christians to have soft hearts that cry for those that don't know Jesus. But in that development, what we have neglected is the idea that Jesus calls us not to make converts, but disciples.
You see -
Conversions are easy. Discipleship is hard work.
Saying a prayer is easy. Choosing to follow Jesus daily is hard work.
Appearances are easy. The long internal struggle to be completely transformed is hard work.
The Easy Side of Faith
Much like our culture tells us to find the best deals, the church has sometimes been guilty of trying to give people only the easy side of faith. But, I think we've missed the point.
Listen to the words of Jesus from Luke 14 -
"If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’
Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace.
In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples. Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear."
Every time Jesus called a person to follow him, his primary concern wasn't to make a convert, but an apprentice. It was a call to begin a new journey towards a transformation that would make them more like him. Jesus came to inaugurate a new kingdom, something that we could begin to experience now, not only in the future.
When Jesus called people, his primary concern wasn't to make a convert, but an apprentice. Click To TweetThe Real Side of Faith
Our society tells us to look for the best deal and the lowest possible price. For Christianity, that simply isn't an option. If we as the church want to remain faithful to the Gospel, we need to be clear that following Jesus is not a lowest-common-denominator sort of thing. Instead, it is a lifelong journey of learning and following in order to be shaped and transformed by our Lord.
Christianity is not about the number of conversions we can tally, but the number of disciples that are being shaped to live as Kingdom people. We should never advertise Christianity to be On Sale like a cheap throw-away T-shirt or an after holiday special. We must proclaim it as Jesus did; as a lifelong journey that leads us in the direction of becoming more like the one we claim to follow - Jesus our Lord.
Jesus is never on sale.
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