I recently saw a friend’s post of social media asking non-Christians why they walked away from the church/ Christianity.
Answers were what’s often expected: hypocritical Christians, the judgmental attitude of people in the church, a lack of concern for the marginalized and issues of social justice, and so on.
And if that is you- if you grew up in church or had a church experience and walked away for any of the above or any other number of reasons- let me be the first to say that I am sorry.
The ugly truth is that, throughout history, people who have claimed the name of Jesus have often done a poor job of representing Jesus.
- We talk about grace but act in judgment.
- We speak about the love of Christ but fail to love others.
- We talk about loving our neighbors…until they don’t vote like us. Then the knives come out.
- …and on and on.
Christians throughout history have often demonstrated a disconnect between what we believe and what we do- and, sadly, there are eternal consequences for that behavior.
If you’ve been on the receiving end of that: I am so sorry. And I’d even go as far to say that I understand why you walked away from church. I’m a pastor, and I get it: “church people” can be nasty. I’ve experienced. I get why you would want to walk away and never come back.
I do have a question for you, however:
What did you do with Jesus when you walked away?
Here’s what I mean by that:
Regardless of how you were treated by church people…regardless of how you saw church people acting…what did you do with Jesus and what Jesus said?
Specifically, what did you do with what He said about our sin and the way back to God?
I get it. None of us are likely to listen to a message that comes from people who come off as unloving. We all want to know that someone cares before we’re likely to listen to what they say. And I myself am frustrated that the actions of Christians often cover up the message of Jesus.
But that said…what did you do with His message?
Regardless of how church people act, Jesus still said…
- He is the only way to God (John 14:6)
- That He came to give eternal life (John 3:16)
- That we will all spend eternity somewhere (Matthew 25:31-46)
- That NOT everyone will spend eternity in heaven (Matthew 7:21-23)
- That He Himself is God (John 8:58-59: the Jews wanted to stone Him because “I am” was claiming the name of God revealed to Moses and thus a claim to deity; that’s how He ended up on the Jewish authorities radar to get rid of in the first place)
…and then He proved it by rising from the dead- which sounds ridiculous…except his earliest disciples went to their graves for refusing to back off that claim…which is insane to start with…unless it’s true.
I get it; the people claiming the name of Jesus acted in a way that turned you off.
But what did you do with Jesus?
There are a lot of books that go deeper into some of the subject matter here on who Jesus was, such as The Case for Christ and More than a Carpenter, so I won’t get into that now.
All I want to do is pose the question for you to marinate on:
So you walked away from church…but what did you do with Jesus?
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This post originally appeared on dillonschupp.com.