Day Two

Day Two // February 18 // Our Body

“God knows I’m not perfect, either. I’ve made tons of stupid mistakes, and later I regretted them. And I’ve done it over and over again, thousands of times; a cycle of hollow joy and vicious self-hatred. But even so, every time I learned something about myself.” – Misato Katsuragi –

We begin with the human conundrum. We believe and choose to follow the Jesus who was without sin. We are flawed humanity who constantly fall short and miss the mark of our highest desires. We either resign ourselves to our predicament, or in our struggle to be better, we begin the upward climb of sanctification. We resonate with Paul’s anguish in Romans 7: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do… wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” It is the struggle to be more like Jesus that should define our journey of Lent. How often do we have beliefs that we struggle to put into practice? In fact, there

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is actually a new kind of vegetarian. They are people who don’t eat meat – most of the time. One of them explained that she was a vegetarian, but she really liked bacon. And, so, she eats bacon. And therein lies the contradiction: a vegetarian, by definition, is someone who doesn’t eat meat. So, a new phrase has been coined to describe vegetarians who aren’t committed to abstaining from meat. They now identify themselves as “flexitarians.” Too many Christians settle for being “flexitarians.” We believe in Jesus, but that belief is not translated into living the Gospel. Kyle Idleman wrote an intriguing essay in which he explored our predicament in following Jesus. He wrote: “A Christian, by definition, is a follower of Christ. But too many identify themselves as Christians but have little interest in actually following the teachings of Jesus. Perhaps instead of ‘followers,’ it would be more accurate to call them ‘fans.’

The word fan is most simply defined as, an enthusiastic admirer. And I think Jesus has a lot of fans these days. Some fans may even get dressed up for church on Sunday and make their ringtone a worship song. They like being associated with Jesus. Fans want to be close enough to Jesus to get the benefits, but not so close that it requires anything from them. They want a no-strings-attached relationship with Jesus. So, a fan

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says, I like Jesus but don’t ask me to serve the poor. I like Jesus, but I’m not going to give my money to people who are in need. I like Jesus, but don’t ask me to forgive the person who hurt me.”

As we travel these days of Lent, we need to honestly struggle with the gap between what we believe and how we live. In these days, Jesus doesn’t need more fans. He needs followers willing to take up a cross and join Him on the journey to Jerusalem.