"If Jesus is the Son of God, we should be terrified of what He will do when He gets his hands on our lives; if the Bible is the Word of God, we should be quaking every time we read its soulpiercing words; if the church is the body of Christ, our culture should be threatened by our intimidating presence. But our culture is not threatened by our presence, it's not terrified of the Jesus in our lives, and it's not quaking at the Word of God. Why? Because we have familiarized the gospel, sanitized it, flattened it, taken the sting and terror out of it. We've been intimidated by those who claim to be familiar with Jesus...At first glance these people seem to know God extremely well. They know the "Key To God's Will" or "How To Live A Happy Life" or "Six Steps to Maturity." These people have reduced the gospel to a set of principles, Bible verses, moral absolutes, and theorems - as though God were some kind of mathematical problem that needed to be solved. What is implied (but never said) is that once we understand the formula, once we have determined "God's principles," then we can be comfortable because we know how God works. Which makes great sense...unless they are wrong."
- Dangerous Wonder by Mike Yaconelli
1 comment:
Wow! That's interesting. He is right - we have reduced the gospel to where it doesn't convict or challenge.
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