Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Applecart Upset

As Christians in the affluent western world, we can’t help but be influenced by our society. As we make various attempts to try to “live like Christians”, often our efforts bear little fruit.

Even “organized” efforts like the fairly recent WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) “campaign” may point us to reflect on the problem but at the same time does little to provide insight into how Jesus (or God) would actually want us to live our lives.

Last Sunday my son Gregg (who is a Friends pastor in Oregon) gave a sermon on the topic that kind of reminded me of the old phrase “applecart upset”, though he titled it something else. Here’s a snippet of what he said:

“My (recent) life … has been one of God yanking me out of the easy path I seem to map out for my life, and sending me down a road that I was not expecting and that involves sacrifice…. The heart of following Jesus is radically different than the way most of us live our lives. Following Jesus is not something which gives us a power or a tool to having all that we ever wanted in life.”

If that’s not enough to make you click here to read his entire sermon as he delivered it, then so be it. But if not, you’ll be missing some great insight on what it means to be a follower of Christ in our “success-driven” society.

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