Rob Wilkerson of Miscellanies on the Gospel (latest winner of a Warnie Award, I might add) burns up the Internet with the question of why Christians aren’t satisfied with Christ and have to go to other sources for their spiritual fulfillment:
In closing, might I add a more practical way that we can lurch backwards into the simplicity of the gospel message of Christ and Him crucified? It involves a ‘put off’ and a ‘put on.’ First, let’s put off Hollywood. It offers nothing but a mirage. Too many Christians, including myself, watch movies in order to gain some redemptive element which we can use as common ground to share the gospel with others. That works sometimes. But I’m beginning to think that when that is used as common ground, generally their perception of Christianity, priests, and preachers is just what Hollywood has told them it is. So if we start with Hollywood, we’re already starting with a broken tool…a severely broken tool. I say let’s ditch the whole thing. Ironically, it’s filled with nothing but emptiness. There’s no gospel in Hollywood, so let’s stop allowing it to seep into our minds, hearts, and homes.
Second, let’s put on the Lord Jesus Christ as He’s already revealed Himself in the Bible. He hasn’t revealed anything of Himself in Hollywood. If we read our Bibles as much as we watched Hollywood’s products, or better yet, if we read our Bible as much as we watched Hollywood’s products and instead of Hollywood’s products, what kind of Christians do you think we would be?
Amen, Rob.
A few years ago, I came to the stunning revelation that nothing ultimately satisfies but Jesus. I stopped giving my time and effort to things that accomplished nothing but satisfying my own craving to be entertained. So much of Christianity has turned into entertainment! Seymour over at The Light Is Sweet posted this perfect commentary from one of my personal faves, Leonard Ravenhill:
Entertainment is the devil’s substitute for Joy; the less joy of the Lord you have, the more entertainment you need.
How eerily true.
Too many want to justify their entertainment fixation by saying that one can find truth in films. My answer? You can pan for flecks of gold in vast fields of manure, but why do it when Christ can fill you up with an infinitely more satisfying treasure: Himself.
Anyway, my journey into the revelation that only Jesus is needed came about because of a passage that has always been one of my favorites, but which I did not fully understand until two years ago:
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
—John 6:66-69 ESV
Lord Jesus Christ, to whom shall we go? There is no truth apart from You. There is nothing that satisfies forever like You do. There is nothing worth possessing more than You. There is no one worth knowing more than You.
And yet how easily so many go careening from one cheap, throwaway thrill to the next. Even people who call themselves by Christ’s name. How desperately sad.
That’s not me anymore. I hope it’s not you, either.
I see so many unusual trends in the blogs I read. Certain memes travel around the Christian blogosphere in a never-ending game of tag. One of the ones I have observed from the very beginning is the tendency for some of the hardline Evangelical and Fundamentalist blogs to loathe anything that smacks of being fun because “the underground Church in [fill in a country here] is being persecuted.”
There’s not a human being alive who doesn’t need prayer. What can be more challenging than meeting a need that goes largely unmet in the lives of every person on the face of the planet?