If entering the life of following Jesus is like moving into a house, many of us have entered the house of Christianity through the back door. We’ve walked around the backside of the house and made our home on the back porch patio.
The back porch is a pleasant place to be. It is a great place to relax. It is quiet and uninterrupted. It allows for great privacy. It is a great place of escape. It is a place of safety. It is removed from the noise and commotion of neighbors out on the street. It is an escape from the world.
The back porch is a very welcoming place, but it is also not a place for strangers. In the house of Christianity, it is the place where we "accept Jesus into our hearts". It is the place where we come to understand the significance of Jesus dying on the cross for us. It is where we come to realize we need a savior. That we desire something more in life. That we recognize there is a heaven where God resides. That we desire to be reconnected to him there. It is a very personal and dear place to us.
But this back porch comfort never gives us the time to see much of the house and all it has to offer. We are ill acquainted with each room of the house. We've never even walked out the front door to get acquainted with our surroundings. We have essentially entered the house of Christ and never chosen to move in to all that it has to offer. We also don't truly understand how that house can truly affect our neighborhood. We’ve stopped short of entering and beginning to understand the bigger picture of what the house holds. We have hardly made it our home.
It's the back porch of Christianity. It’s where many Christians live. And the only objective while sitting on the back porch is to abide by the rules of the house and get more people to join you on the porch. Back Porch Christianity: A bigger back porch party where everyone abides by the house rules. Is that what its all about?
What if the misconceptions and stereotypes that stigmatize Christians today as judgmental, hypocritical, perfect, arrogant, (all the things that simply don’t reflect Jesus himself) are intimately related to how deeply we have applied ourselves to the full life of the one whom we follow? Of the one whose house we reside in? Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
Do we truly know the one with whom we live? Have we taken time to know his life? Are we intimately acquainted with his Gospel stories? Have we spent time in the rooms of his house to fully take on his life? Do we understand how he would engage in his neighborhood? Do we know how he would run his house? Do we know how he would deal with conflict? How we would manage his household? How he would respond to tragedies in the home and neighborhood around us? How he would take care of his property? How he would conduct business? What he would invest into the home? What he would do when he was outside the home? Who he would invite over for dinner? Who would be his closest friends? How he would throw a party? Who he would invite? What he would keep from entering the home? What his reputation would be like in the community?
To fully enter the house of Christ and make our home there, we must fully enter the Gospel stories to see how he lived and moved. That involves getting off the back porch and moving throughout the whole house of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
Comments