Selfish Christianity

When did Christianity become so selfish? Am I the only one who has noticed this? It just seems to me that Christianity has become all about what you can get out of it for yourself. So long as things are going well and God is "blessing" us everyone is happy and Christianity is great. But as soon as life gets hard we get angry at God. Why is that even though Jesus said things like "take up your cross daily and follow me" and "when you have troubles" etc we still seem to think that being a Christian means that we have a big God on our side who is going to make our life happy and better and we will be more succesful and have a nicer car and bigger house because God loves us.

I'm sorry but that is just stupid.

We come to church on Sunday and expect to be entertained. If the music isn't what we like or the sermon is boring or the chairs uncomfortable we complain. The last time I checked it was called a Sunday morning WORSHIP service. And I am pretty sure that worship is about us giving back to God. I believe Paul said that our giving ourselves as living sacrifices was our spiritual act of worship. Last I checked, the sacrifice wasn't on the altar thinking about what it wanted. If we are coming to worship we should be coming to empty ourselves out before God. To lay down all the selfishness and pride that we've been carrying at the feet of an almighty God whose mere presence causes us to fall on our faces in humility.

How can we possibly enter into the presence of God and have the nerve to think it is about us and getting what we want from God!

We have even become selfish with God's blessings. Somehow we have gotten the idea that God blesses us for the sole purpose of making us happier. We say things like "the promotion was such a blessing so we can finally afford that new Lexus we've been wanting. Now I have nothing against Lexuses (I'm not sure if I can add es to Lexus but it's my blog so I'm doing it) but if God blesses you it is so you can do something for Him with that blessing. Maybe God blessed you with that promotion so you could sponsor another child from World Vision or maybe God blessed you to be in a one income family so you could volunteer not so you could sit at home watching Oprah or Sports Center. Maybe God blessed you with another child so that the schools or the city soccer league or the local dance school could have another Christian witness there. I don't know why God blesses us with different things but I do know that it isn't so we can sit back and say thank you God now I'm just going to sit here and enjoy this blessing myself.

I'm tired of selfish Christianity. I'm tired of Christians who think it's all about them. I'm tired of the label hypocrites being accurate. I'm tired of Christians who would rather complain about the homeless driving their property values down instead of getting involved and being Jesus to the world. I'm tired of Christians whining that Bono swore on stage instead of championing the work he is doing to help aids orphans in Africa.

And I'm tired of Christians who have decided that being a Christian simply means putting on a mask every Sunday and looking the part isntead of truly laying down their lives and letting God transform them into the image of Christ. Christ got dirty, Christ hung with some rather ungodly people, Christ was beaten, ridiculed, spit on, whipped and nailed to a cross. Christ didn't come to hang in the church with church people and eat the potluck. He came as a sacrifice and if you claim to be a Christian then it's not about you, it's about what you can sacrifice for Him.