another Sunday
They showed a video in church this morning that talked about Christmas spending. And giving. And slaves.
It almost made me cry.
I saw all the potential of the American church. Forty five billion dollars we spend every year on . . . on what we call Christmas. While the children in Haiti are being sold as slaves and having their organs sold on the black market. And the homeless children in the Congo are being raped as they sleep on the streets. And the children in Kenya are dying from hunger on the side of the road as they walk to town to find food.
Forty five billion dollars.
Do you see the potential there? What an amazing opportunity we have to change the world! What generosity! What unity! What brilliance! That we over here might be given much so that we might give it away to those who are dying for lack of it.
And we won’t do it.
We won’t give.
Instead, we gorge ourselves and remain unsatisfied (not to mention the damage to our digestive systems) while they starve day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year. And die of treatable diseases. And drink water that will kill them. And live under tarp and cardboard that washes away every time it rains.
And all the while, we give away a part of our excess and never think of surrendering so much that it costs us our comfortableness.
That is why the video in church brought tears to my eyes.
We have such beautiful, boundless, untapped potential. Not just because of our money, but also because of our education, our influence, our talents, our time. It’s potential that for the most part we’re not using. And it’s killing us as literally as it is killing them.
Now let me try to be realistic here for a minute. I’m not saying that I want every Christian in the United States to sell all their belongings, pick out a pair of flip-flops, and move to a foreign country. Maybe it would do us some good, but I realize we can’t all do that.
What I do want is to see us all die.
I want to see the Bride of Christ pick up her cross and follow Jesus. I want to see us trade our mansions here for a mansion there. I want to see us invest in gold instead of chaff. I want to see us get rid of a very large portion of our stuff (the junk we keep crammed in the garage), smash our TV sets, quit building bigger churches, wear clothes with a few more holes in them, stop talking so much, take off our make-up and our masks, and find the road that leads to Calvary.
I want to see us follow that road.
I want to see us climb up to the top of that hill.
I want to see us learn what it feels like to hang naked on a cross.
Why?
Because that’s what Jesus did.
And until we finally give up everything to Him, we’re not really doing such a good job of following Him as we like to think we are.
Our half-way measures aren’t enough.
He wasn’t being half-hearted when He suffered them to whip Him. He wasn’t being half-hearted when He stood still as they pushed a crown of thorns onto His head. He wasn’t being half-hearted when He let them drive the nails into the palms of His hands.
He gave it all.
He hasn’t called any of us to give less.
