Putting Jesus in Your Service

Dallas Willard makes the observation in his new book The Great Omission that American Christians have made it a habit to separate Jesus as Lord and Jesus as Leader. According to Willard (and I think he's probably spot on), most all churches have made the mistake of separating salvation from discipleship. What this results in is a two-tiered kind of Christianity where most anyone can receive salvation (after all it is the free gift of God as the Scriptures say) but whether or not newly minted Christians become disciples is up to them.

Options
This fits well with our "additions optional" society. Americans love options and they love being able to select which options they want. Cars have options, membership plans at gyms have options, and when you buy most anything at the store these days you have the option of adding an extended warranty. Starbucks has made a fortune partly becuase they have tapped into the desire of all Americans to be unique and express this uniquess through a myriad of drink variations. I have some friends, people of course that are very strange, that made it a point of trying to create the longest possible Starbucks order. Even my currently favorite eating establishment, Panera, drives me up the wall with its "at least three options" for every item strategy. Order an entree and you must choose between a side of bread, an apple, or a bag of chips. Select the bag of chips and you can get fried or baked. Select fried and you can get kettle or regular potato. It can be a bit tedious when you don't like any of those options to begin with.

This options mentality is everywhere, even the church. Church growth experts encourage churches that desire to grow to add another service (or two or three) becuase this gives people more options! It is not as if this is a bad strategy, it most always works becuase, as a matter of fact, people do like options!

Options and Discipleship
But this most certainly goes too far when we begin expecting options to be applied to everything. The problem is that when it comes to Christianity, there is no distinction in the Bible between salvation and discipleship. It's not clear that fire insurance really exists when you look at the New Testament. You don't get to accept Jesus and then add him to the collection of other ideas, activities, obligations, and desires in your life. Repeatedly Jesus indicates that following Him is an all or nothing equation. He sends the rich young ruler away because He had asked the young man to give up that which was most precious to him, and the guy just wasn't able to do it. The Scripture says that the young ruler left sad becuase he really was a rich guy. What we don't see is Jesus telling Him that he could choose be saved but then not live like it.

If Willard is right, then perhaps we do a disservice to people when we tell them that Jesus is willing to save them and then leave it at that. As Willard notes, he is not the first oneo make this observation, nor are we the first society to fall into this trap. Bonhoeeffer Cost of Discipleship was much about just this idea. Following Christ is an all or nothing equation where we are willing to give up everything else in our lives to follow and obey Him. It means that he just might ask us for those things that we are most attached to, and if we are serious about Him, we must be willing to give them up.

Adding Jesus
What we often end up doing is adding Jesus to our life instead of making Him the center of our life. We recognize that He really was on to some great stuff and that if we had some of the life He spoke of, then our life might be pretty good. But what we are so often unwilling to do is subject the rest of our life to His scrutiny. I mean especially when it comes to the fact that many of us have spent our lives building careers, families, and lifestyles. It would be absurd to give it all up for Him.

But we usually don't think about it in that way. I think what we usually do is assuage our conscience (and stuff the Holy Spirit's gentle requests for more involvement in our lives) by asking Jesus to bless whatever it is that we are doing. Sure we are willing to clean up some obvious things in our lives. We are certainly willing to revel in the incredible new joy that His life brings inside of us. But when it comes down to brass tacks, there's only so far that we are willing to go. I mean it's just a spiritual belief system anyway.

As Rick McKinley says in This Beautiful Mess we ask God to endorse our agenda and to make us better kings and queens in our own kingdoms. Rather then throwing out ALL of that for His and asking Him what to do and pursue.

I have made this mistake (and will continue to) many times. Plotting my course and then asking God to bless it. I add Jesus to my mess and ask Him to wave a wand (of course I ask Him to wave His hand becuase I don't believe in magic, that would be unChristian) over it and make everything alright.

What a poor soldier I make! One that is committed to the cause to the degree that the cause does not interfere with his plans and when they do, put the Cause aside. I'm reminded that those that choose the military as a means to finance an education often discover that when their career goals diverge from the goals of the military, the career goals lose every time.