I heard from a Christian man I know the other day. He called me on my phone to catch up. As we started talking he sounded different and sort of sounded like he has some wish that soon he could just go to Heaven or something. He seemed like he was tired of everything except the Lord, his family and a few of his wack job friends. He said that he had started to watch less & less of the news, less tv and then in a power move lost interest in the NFL. I didn’t know what to say to him. This wasn’t the fun Church guy I used to know. He was changed somehow.
Then he freely began to talk about his sins and weaknesses as though it was the easiest thing he had ever said before. Who talks of that stuff?
Then he began talking of not just some Christian interest he had, but of an overwhelming desire, like an addiction of Christian stuff he liked doing. I started to try to get off this call! As I was searching for a way to hang up he then backed up everything he said with Bible verses, which bored me even more!
He seemed like a both a dead man and a living man. As he talked about his life, his talk was low and slow. When the talk switched to about Jesus, his tone became fast and cheerful.
I told him that his voice confused me. He told me that what I was hearing was just a man carrying a cross, who was running a race in which he said he wanted to kill or as he said “crucify” his flesh, and at the same time - run a race to serve the Lord. Wack job!
He didn’t want any advice on how to make his flesh better or happier. In fact that talk sort of perturbed him. He then became almost angry as I reminded him of his awards, successes and such. Who doesn’t want to hear of their good things? As I said, wack job!
So to try to get this call over with I switched back to talking with him about Jesus, talking about scripture and soon he was back to being happy again. He was even happy as he mentioned a bunch of warnings from Jesus about how many people today are not really saved, and that Gods love in His warnings is beginning to wake people in Churches up and help them to get really saved.
I told him that at my Church we try to only focus on mostly happy scriptures and short Bible stories and my pastor tells a lot of cool jokes. He asked if my pastor ever talked about repentance. I laughed and said “no! And if he ever did then we would all make him apologize for being a jerk. He didn’t say anything when I said that but I think I heard him groan.
As we finished our talk I began to wonder why I’m so excited about people talking of my successes, accomplishments, money, sports car, big events, size of my Church and much more.
One thing that he said really struck me. It was when he said that King David’s son said Solomon said “vanity of vanities” I think in Ecclesiastes 1:2. It was then that I started to get angry and was looking even harder for a way to end the conversation.
But then I thought for a brief second that the man I was talking too seemed like he had Jesus on the throne or in charge of his heart & life, while in my heart I’m quite happy and still boss man! I want to rule. The dude was making me feel weird in my heart, so I put on some tv sitcom to focus on and quickly forgot this Jesus freaky guy and about all the Christian cult like junk that he was talking about.
Ya know from what I am taught at my big Church, by my pastor, I don’t think God wants any person to be so really serious about Him, like this guy is. I mean I go to Church and I never miss the Church band concerts, the beach fun, parties, driving to see Christian celebrities or any of the fun stuff. That’s enough for me.
Talk talk talk. He talks Jesus and I talk about Church size. He talks of the Cross of Jesus and I talk to him about how many people came to the Church concert. He asked me to come to pray with Christian’s I don’t know at a place where they have wedding receptions. I laughed and told him that I don’t need that stuff because my pastor prays for a few minutes every Sunday.
He pressed it and talked of getting a few minutes at the park praying for each other. Just me and him alone. I laughed at the wack job and tried to change the conversation, so I told him of our Church building addition and how next week some of my crew at Church were going to see a Christian speaker at a sports arena. I guess he took what I said as a “no” and that is good!
Look, I want fun, ya know Christian fun and the bigger the better. He didn’t say much at this point. The truth is that none of the things he said really interested me. And it seems that none of the fun things I spoke about, even interested him a bit.
I sort of lost a desire to ever see or be around him after we talked. He takes Jesus way too far man, like the guy is really here or something. It weirded me out.
It was almost like we believe in 2 separate Jesus’s.
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