Christian Hoarders: Just throw it away!

Stacks of devotionals.
Stacks of flyers.

I'm sick of religious activity.  Some of it is done simply out of obligation, self-importance, some type of religious guilt, or even used as a morality checklist.

"Go to church" every week and "refuel"; join a Bible study and receive an outline on what we're expected to "get from the text"; buy a devotional and prescribe a "quiet time"; go to every single event and program; call any little thing you do "service" and feel good about yourself; surround yourself with "church folk", do "church stuff", and it's "all for the glory of God".

Give me a break.

Should "church" be a culminating experience and a place you go to every week and refuel your Jesus tank for the week?  NO.  (I think I'll write a post just on this.)

Why do we encourage a set quiet time?  Is it because we like giving Jesus an hour of our time and not our whole day?  Actually, yes.  That's exactly why we do it.  We absolutely hate giving up control and we hate when others access our dirty secrets.  But giving Jesus complete reign?  It sucks because we're so comfortable, but we have to at least try.  So listen.  Go get your devotional and throw it in the trash!  Instead, give Him complete access to your whole day.  Let Him infiltrate your schoolwork, your job, everything!  Eat, walk, talk, write, laugh, cry, wait at the DMV, read a book, play a game, all in the name of Jesus!  It sounds silly, but it will make perfect sense when you do.  This is the Gospel.

Why do we hold so many events and have so many programs?  Maybe consumerism is to blame.  Maybe we invite as many people to as many things as possible because we think we'll "reach" the optimum amount of non-Christians that way.  I think pushing events and "church activities" in the faces of those who don't believe is actually a deterrent.  I've seen it firsthand.  I'm not saying don't talk about Jesus.  I'm saying that that's not good enough.  We can do more.  Why is it so hard to commit and invest in one person and love them?  To pour ourselves out over and over for them?  Because it takes work and it makes us uncomfortable!  We also feel like we should get something out of it!  But I know that's what Jesus wants for us to do.  So go take your flyers and throw them away!  Instead, step out of your comfort zone and really and truly love someone that's difficult for you to love.  That's where you'll find Jesus.

Just take one look at Jesus' life and you'll see a crystal clear disconnect between religious activity and what Jesus was all about.  In fact, he explicitly rejected the Pharisees' religious activity.  Jesus completely undermined their rules upon rules.  Where was the substance?  Jesus showed that not only was there no substance in their religious activity, but all of their religious activity was actually DISTANCING them from God and putting them at odds with Him.

What I'm afraid the modern church is doing is building large bubbles.  We surround ourselves with more and more people that look like us, talk like us, act like us, and think like us until we form a solid wall around our beloved "church".  Sure, you can come join us, but it's all or nothing.  You better conform to that list.  WE are doing it the right way.  WE have it all figured out.  THIS, in fact, is how it works and how it looks.
Is all of that really furthering the Kingdom of God, or are we actually building our own kingdoms?

When we look at Jesus' life, we see something much different.  We see Him eat with sinners over and over and over and over.  The lost are the people in which he spent the majority of his time.  This bothered the uber-religious Pharisees to the core.  The gospels tell of Jesus telling and explaining things, Jesus going out and showing the 12 what that looks like, then handing that over to them(and to us).  Acts would be super boring if it was just some guys who kept to themselves and talked and sung about Jesus the whole time.  It probably would've meant Jesus didn't mean much to them and that they never understood who Jesus was or what He meant in the first place.

Good thing we don't do that...