I find it hard to recall the amount of times I have heard individuals in today’s time praise Jesus for what he said, yet end their engagement with him there. It is almost as if Jesus is an application on their phone that they may use every once in a while if they’re in a pinch, maybe even praying to him a few times, but to fully commit means losing too much of the other things they love. However, I believe it is this exact commitment that contains the solution they are searching for in the very things they are afraid to lose. I believe that Jesus did not live and teach in such a way to simply be an application on a phone, but rather to BE the phone. To be so present and involved in our lives that even the thought of his absence puts us into a panic as we shuffle around to find him again.
C.S. Lewis once famously wrote that “One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.” What Lewis sought to say is that the person of Jesus Christ, with both his life and his teachings, cannot be handpicked to best fit someone’s preferences. Instead, he can only be either dismissed altogether or fully embraced as the infinitely valuable person that he is. He is infinitely valuable for countless reasons, but it is best to see this value by looking at the words of the man himself.
Jesus said many things that, if proposed to everyone, pretty much all people would agree with. For example, in Mark 12:31 he says, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” and in John 15:13 he mentions that there is no greater love than when “someone lay down his life for his friends.” However, he made many other claims that are much more radical. For starters, he claims the following in John 14:6: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” It is here that he explicitly says that no one can achieve any significance beyond their mortal life apart from accepting him completely. If that is not enough, in John 10:30 he states that “I and the Father are one.” He is obviously referring to God the Father here and henceforth proclaiming to be God. It is instances like these where he moves from a “good teacher” or a “good man” to God himself! So, one of the primary reasons he is infinitely valuable is because he is God. This reality that he teaches means that acceptance of him leads to eternal life and rejection of him leads to eternal separation.
My hope is that all may see that, because of what Jesus claims, he cannot be moderately approached. He must be either fully accepted as Lord and Savior, or be fully rejected as a fake and a fraud. Whatever the case may be, he cannot be considered as anything in between. He does not allow us to do so, but what he does allow us to do is accept his gift of eternal life. To know the truth and be set free by it. To commune with the living God. To, if anything else, commit our lives to him to prove that when we authentically do so–we will never look back.
Written by Brock Bridle