What Is The Point?

Hello readers.  Welcome to my heart.  Let's begin. 

I know you've seen the title, but I want to ask you again. What is the point of all of this?  What is the point of being a Christian? In my pursuit of further growing in truth and understanding, I'm finding a gap between me and a lot of people is forming.  Wanna know what it is? 

A lot of people ain't pursuing that. 

And after reading a few books from Andy Stanley and listening to Matt Chandler regularly, two guys in my "circle" that constantly go against the norm, it brought me to this question that unbelievers could be asking.

Why is your lifestyle better than mine?  Why is your Jesus better for me? 

If you're an unbeliever reading this, or you're not feeling this whole church thing, this is the perfect blog for you.  Because, I love how we Christians have just assumed that we can just walk up to you, toss out some information about sin and Hell, and we just expect for you to respond and repent.  Ideally, that's the easy part.  But I'll save that for another blog.   

Because, I mean your entire identity has been tied up in what you're doing.  Who am I to tell you you're wrong or sinning or whatever.  Lol.  I get it.  I get it.  Who am I? 

So I'm asking the question that you're asking us.  What is the point?  What is the point of being a Christian?  What is the point of giving my life and heart to Jesus?  Ya'll are boring.  Your lifestyles suck.  You never have any fun.  You all seem to be stuck up and tight wads and you can't do anything.  What is the point of going through all of that? 

And here's what our Bible Belt culture and over saturated "Christian" country has done.  We've boiled down the message of Jesus Christ to what's right and what's wrong.  To do's and don't's. To behavioral modification, to lifestyle adjustments.  It's boiled down to: Christian's shouldn't party.  Christian's shouldn't drink.  Blah blah blah. 

The problem is way deeper than those do's and don't's.  There's a deeply rooted heart of sin that plague's all of us.  So shootings in Sandy Hook and movie theaters make sense when you look at sin in the proper way.  It's not just drinking a beer or being in a bar, but it is a self centered rebellion against a holy God that screams for my way, my will is better.  All of our actions are stemmed from thinking of what "I want."  Many of us are so subconscious to it that we don't even realize that the reason we hate people or make the decisions we make is because of what we want.  We are so critical of all things, why?  Because we feel our opinions and decisions are better.  And this has gotten so funny to me, because there is a constant wave of this throughout regular conversations.  If a person doesn't respond how we think they should, or do what we expect for them to do, or say what we think they should say, WE ARE OFFENDED OR AGGRAVATED. 

That is the heart of sin. 

And that heart of sin is leading to our death.  Our bodies are infected with this disease and it's slowly killing us.  It's driving our motivations.  It's the driving force in many of our relationships.  That's why the bible calls us evil, once enemies of God.  (Romans 5:10) 

And I know what you're thinking, I'm not an enemy of God.  I love Him. Check this verse out.  "In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome," 1 John 5:3. 

Let's highlight the last part of that verse.  "His commands are not burdensome."  Have you noticed that everything is hard to do when you don't want to do it?  That homework. That essay.  Those chores.  But when you're willing to do them, it becomes easy. 

The heart of sin makes it hard for us to submit to an authority.  It's the same reason why we get mad at a policeman for writing us a ticket when we were the ones that broke the law by speeding. 

So what is the point of being a Christian?  I want to sum it up in this next paragraph. 

The point is that without Jesus, without the righteousness of Christ covering our sins, we are enemies of God and due the wrath of His judgement.  So all of us are enemies of God.  But Romans 5:10 tells us "For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son." So here's the gospel!  Don't miss it!  While you are a sinful mess.  While you are an enemy of God, rebelling against His will and His way, His perfect and flawless design, corrupting all that He has created---God restored the friendship.  God loved you, while you were ignoring Him.  While you were disobeying, hiding, rebelling, hating, whatever, He has loved you and has restore the friendship through Jesus.  This is the Good News.  And it's sooo good for all of us, because after Jesus saves us from this heart of sin, we are granted the inheritance of eternal life. Freely given to us. 

That is the point.  We get eternal life.  I know all of us will admit there's evil.  You can't watch a day on the news without realizing that.  So the opposite must be true.  There has to be a good.  And the Good News is that good. 

Ignore what your religious teachings has shrunken the message of Jesus down too.  This is your first response.  Don't worry about stop going to bars and having sex.  Just focus on responding to the love of God, of the love of His mercy and His grace sufficiently covering us in this moment.  The power of God will take care of all that other stuff.  But you...you just respond. 

Just respond. 

That is the point.