Sacrifice Jesus - This is the Jesus that concerns himself with your eternal soul. People who worship Sacrifice Jesus are very prepared to go to heaven, the sooner the better.
Prosperity Jesus - This Jesus is very concerned with the amount of money in your bank account as well as how big your house/car/boat is. People who worship Prosperity Jesus will usually drive fancy cars, or talk about the day that they will, they also go to church in opulent buildings.
Judge Jesus - Here we have a Jesus that is mainly concerned with a list of rights and wrongs, especially in connection with other people. People who worship Judge Jesus like picket signs and boycotts and are extremely quick to point out your sins, even if they fail to mention their own.
Social-Justice Jesus - This Jesus is a man for the downtrodden, he is concerned about the 'least of these' and wants you to be as well. People who worship Social-Justice Jesus make their own clothes and usually have dreadlocks, very often they will live in intentional communities.
Grace Jesus - Here we find a Jesus that is only concerned that you feel good about yourself, you may have made mistakes, but he has wiped them clean so that you can live a full life. People who worship Grace Jesus want everyone to know that Jesus loves them, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
Historical Jesus - This guy really lived, but not quite the way the Bible says. People who worship Historical Jesus claim that they do not worship Historical Jesus, because Historical Jesus did not come so that we might worship him.
There are an untold amount of other Jesus' that I could add to this list, but I believe that this is enough for our purposes.
So, which Jesus do you worship?
Well, some of you might be tracking with where I am going, the truth of the matter is that Jesus is a little more complicated than most of us have made him. You see Jesus is all of these things to some degree, while at the same time being none of these things. Make sense? Probably not, and that's all right.
You see Jesus is concerned about your eternal soul, but he also wants you to live life here and now. Jesus does want you to prosper, he just might want you to sell that nice fancy car and give it to the poor. Jesus is concerned about a list of rights and wrongs, they just happen to be radically different rights and wrongs than we have been led to believe. Jesus is very concerned about the welfare of the downtrodden and the oppressed, but he is equally concerned about the welfare of the wealthy and the oppressors. Jesus is most definitely about grace and love, but lets not forget that he called the religious people a den of vipers and flipped over some tables this one time. Lastly, Jesus was a real person, but he wasn't quite as normal as you and I.
I have worshiped different Jesus' at different times in my life. Sometimes one aspect of Jesus simply meant more to me in certain seasons, other times one aspect of Jesus was drilled into me by pastors and Sunday School teachers or by book I read. There was a season when I hoped people would burn in hell, that season is, thankfully, in my rear view. As is the season where I discounted every bit of the supernatural found in scripture. And the season where all I wanted was for God to be a vending machine.
I pray that each one of us will ask our selves which Jesus we worship, and perhaps more importantly why that Jesus? If we begin to ask ourselves, maybe we can also begin to find the Jesus that is all and so much more.
Peace and Love,
Pastor K
p.s. I realize that I have caricatured various Christians/groups of Christians by my descriptions of the people who worship the various Jesus'. If you are in one of those groups and you were offended, I apologize. At the same time though, if you were offended, it might be time to start praying for a sense of humor ;)
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