{"id":1660,"date":"2013-01-27T09:00:35","date_gmt":"2013-01-27T14:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/?p=1660"},"modified":"2013-01-27T09:02:51","modified_gmt":"2013-01-27T14:02:51","slug":"evicting-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/?p=1660","title":{"rendered":"Evicting Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Courtesy of Creative Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

Today I have been reflecting on the state of affairs with the Church and it’s members. Those who go on Sunday’s, fill up the pews and then walk out unchanged. Church has become nothing more than a social club or coffee clutch.<\/p>\n

And we wonder why the world doesn’t respect Christians.<\/p>\n

I can’t quite blame them. We are wishy washy, sensual, carnal, powerless, materialistic, selfish and self seeking. We only care about ourselves, our agendas, our concepts, our dreams and our works.<\/p>\n

We appease our conscience by doing missions work or by feeding the homeless every now and then.<\/p>\n

We Christian’s have been acting “politically correct” as not to offend anyone. We basically want our cake and eat it too.<\/p>\n

I have decided not to mince words or keep silent anymore on issues I believe need a spotlight.<\/p>\n

Lately, I have been noticing that Christians are walking on egg shells around nonbelievers. \u00a0They don’t want to offend.<\/p>\n

I am all fine and dandy about this to a point. But, when I have to make excuses for the sake of unbelievers or told to be sensitive to nonbelievers or to keep silent about my faith, then that’s where I draw the line.<\/p>\n

You know why?<\/p>\n

Because nonbelievers do and say whatever the heck they want\u00a0 and no one says a word to them. Yet I’m suppose to keep my mouth shut, not say anything about my faith for fear they will be offended or feel uncomfortable?<\/p>\n

I walk down the streets of Manhattan and I am assaulted by unbelievers cursing up a storm and acting in offensive ways. I can’t do or say a thing about it either. But yet, I have to be careful around them for being a Christian?<\/p>\n

I’m sorry, but there is something terribly wrong with this picture. For me, it’s called compromise. We want to please everyone, but if we call ourselves a Christ follower, then God requires us to please Him first.<\/p>\n

Listen, I’m the last person to get in someone’s face and force them to believe in Jesus. But I sure as hell won’t be keeping silent or behaving like I’m not one. I don’t have to be ashamed of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

Why do I have to make excuses or keep silent that I’m a Christian amongst\u00a0 unbelievers?\u00a0 Oh I see, I have to tolerate them, but they can’t tolerate me?<\/p>\n

I presume I have to apologize for my mere existence or for the air I breathe too?<\/p>\n

No one is apologizing to me for being a Muslim, Buddhist or Satanist? I don’t expect them to, but nor should they expect me to either.<\/p>\n

The way I see it is this, if you are Christian, then you are a Christian, period. I shouldn’t have to squirm, apologize or pretend I’m someone other than who I am to please anyone.<\/p>\n

Nor should I have to censor what I write or believe either. With all due respect, if you don’t like what I have to say, you don’t have to read or subscribe to my blog. I’m not here to win any popularity contests. I’m here to tell the truth as I see it. If you don’t agree with it, then please feel free to unsubscribe. I’m not going to compromise my beliefs for anyone… even if it means walking alone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

God gave me the gifts I have and He has blessed me with the ability to communicate and write. He has called me to use those gifts to encourage and edify the Body.<\/p>\n

He did not say for us to bury our gifts, He said for us to use them for His glory, not use them for our own gain.<\/p>\n

I’ve been reevaluating lately and the more I go on, the more disappointed and disillusioned I’ve become with the state of affairs. The world has seeped into the Church and Christians are acting no different than the unbelievers.<\/p>\n

We have evicted Jesus from our Churches, from our projects, from our agendas, from our plans… and mostly, from our hearts. Do we\u00a0 really expect Him to be cool with that?<\/p>\n

Sorry, but this isn’t how it works. Jesus said, “But everyone who denies me here on earth, I will also deny before my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 10:33)\u00a0 He also said, “But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!” (Rev. 3:16)<\/p>\n

Yes, God is a loving God, but we can’t take His love for granted.<\/p>\n

If Christians keep acting like He doesn’t exist as to not offend people, then I’m afraid the state of affairs is only going to get worse, not better.<\/p>\n

What are your thoughts on this? Do you feel like you have to walk on egg shells, make excuses or pretend you are not a Christian for fear of offending unbelievers?<\/p>\n

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Today I have been reflecting on the state of affairs with the Church and it’s members. Those who go on Sunday’s, fill up the pews and then walk out unchanged. Church has become nothing more than a social club or coffee clutch. And we wonder why the world doesn’t respect Christians. I can’t quite blame […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[10,8,7],"tags":[335,56,175,338,339,50,319,337,340,336],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1660"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1660"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1669,"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1660\/revisions\/1669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}