Sold out for the Gospel or Selling it?

When you become a Christian, you’ve been forgiven for all the things you’ve done wrong, you enter into a relationship with the living God, you’re loved and accepted, you’re destined for heaven. Amazing isn’t it? And I love sharing these truths with young people. I love giving them these gems of hope – telling them they’re loved when they feel like no-one cares about them. Telling them they’re accepted when they feel like they don’t fit in anywhere. Telling them they’re forgiven when they’re possessed by shame for the mistakes they’ve made. But that’s like showing someone half a photograph.

Do we tell them that when you become a Christian, you’re called to take up your cross and follow Jesus? To die to yourself. You’re called to serve others instead of yourself. You’re called to love the people who hate you. To forgive people who hurt you. My fear is we don’t. In making Christianity relevant to consumer culture, have we turned passion, love and community it into a cheap product?

And I find myself the head of this marketing committee. When asked how I changed when I met Jesus, my initial response was to say I became much more confident and happy in myself. I was no longer brought down by what girls said to me at school because I’d found love and acceptance in Jesus. But then I thought, when I met Jesus, I learnt to love the girls that bullied me at school, to try to think of others before myself, to be thankful for the good things in life – why weren’t these my first thoughts?

I fear that we’ve commercialised the gospel. That we’ve taken the radical out of history’s biggest movement. That we’ve religified an event that cut history in two. That instead of being sold out for the gospel, we’re trying to sell the gospel.

So what does it look like for you and me to take up our cross?

If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.
Matthew 16: 24-25

Becci Raine

life is harder than we know

We have just finished a week of lessons in a couple of schools that we work in. On one of the last lessons we took, there was a bit of an issue betweeen 2 girls, it all got sorted out and we moved them apart, and they both got on with their work. After the lesson we were chatting to the teacher about the 2 girls and she was telling us how one of them had been to 18 different schools, her mum was an alcoholic, and had been verbally abused all her life. Her dad, who she lives with now, was worried because over the summer no one called for her, invited her out, or asked to do something with her. Through all this, she is a really nice kid, someone who just wants to be loved and who gives respect to pretty much anyone that comes into contact with her. I was really broken when i was hearing this story, and just felt so gutted for her. Thing is she doesn't want my pity, she doesn't want people feeling sorry for her, she just wants to enjoy life. How would Jesus react in that situation? What would he give to her? A sense of belonging. Somewhere she feels safe, and somewhere she can be herself. Thats what we will try and do, not because of pity, but because she is awesome, and she deserves to know that she is loved and she is special. I love being a Christian.