Ok, that's gross. It takes on a different kind of visual image after reading the Twilight series about vampires and their insatiable thirst for human blood.
Remember, the people to whom he was speaking didn't have centuries of understanding to realize that Jesus was being metaphoric here. He just straight up said...you gotta eat my flesh and drink my blood. Make a meal out of me the Message Translation says. This freaked them out a bit. In fact, the disciples responded with "This is tough teaching...too tough to swallow (I'm sure no pun intended)"
Well....there was never a promise that following Jesus would be easy. In fact...just the opposite was promised...got that? PROMISED!!
See...I've had difficulties in life but never any real HARD times.
Until lately that is. My sister-in-law, in her recent Fight Club blog wonders "Would God destroy our homes to show us what really matters? One of my friends says God is not that manipulative, but I wonder if manipulative and sovereign could be synonymous when it comes to God."
I kind of think God knows the desire of our hearts and he grants them when they line up with his will. So, even though what was visible to others about my life looked more like a typical person that wanted to gain a foot up in life and have more stuff, the reality was that my heart craved a sold out life for God. I think he saw that and began to allow the stuff... the props in my life to begin to crumble. He began destroying my "home" to show me what really mattered. When we decided to really give God control of our life and see what would happen....It got HARD. Frankly...when we decided to allow God to teach us his principles and begin living within our means, our pretty little life we had created began to turn to ashes. We have lost a car and a motorcycle to reposession. We are driving a 12 year old vehicle that was given to us and our home will either be lost to short sale or foreclosure, whichever comes first. And we will be spending up to 4 years repaying a massive amount of accrued debt while we fight the overwhelming urge to give in to the easy option of falling back into debt. We decided to stop sacrificing our future...and our current effectiveness for Christ to gain present stuff.
We are actually excited about what God is going to do with us and through us as we allow ourselves to line up with "to live is Christ and to die is gain". We are dying with the excitement of the resurrection that will follow.
We foresee current effectiveness for Christ as we live below our means...and a future of being conduits of large blessing to others as we mantain the focus of earning to give.
We sing a song at church that has a great line in the chorus..."May the vision of you be the death of me" The more we see Christ...the more we die.
I had someone recently say that they were impressed with how we are handling our present circumstances. Well, to be honest...it's not that much different than the disciples response to Jesus' call for them to become bloodsucking vampires. He asked them "will you leave too?" Their response was not laced with awe inspiring devotion. They simply said "where else do we have to go?" Have you offered your life to God for inspection and the burning away of EVERYTHING that hinders you from a sold out life for God? Are you empty enough to respond to Leonard Sweets question - "Can the church stop its puny, hack dreams of trying to "make a difference in the world" and start dreaming God-sized dreams of making the world different? Can the church invent and prevent, redeem and redream this future?"
Has your life been stripped to the point of truly having no other option but to throw yourself headlong and wholeheartedly into HIS vision for your life? To say...what other option do I have but you and all of you?
It hurts....but in the words of John Mellencamp...."It hurts so good"
Do you have the faith to obey? Rom 1:5
