Jared C. Wilson<\/p>\n
There is a pastor whose Twitter feed I occasionally read, but I shouldn\u2019t, because it absolutely drives me nuts. A large portion of my reaction is tied to my own issues, I\u2019m sure, but I see in his broadcasts an almost pathological intention not to mention Jesus. And as I thirst for Jesus, I notice this withholding lots and lots of places everywhere else.<\/p>\n
I have been and always will be doggedly suspicious of pastors who rarely (or never) mention Jesus.<\/p>\n
John Piper says, \u201cWhat we desperately need is help to enlarge our capacities to be moved by the immeasurable glories of Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n
We ministers of the gospel \u2013 and Christians at large \u2013 can fumble this commission in three main ways:<\/p>\n
1. We speak in vague spiritual generalities. Love. Hope. Peace. Joy. Harmony. Blessings. All disembodied from the specific atoning work of the incarnate Jesus and exalted Lord. It all sounds nice. It\u2019s all very inspirational. And it\u2019s rubbish. He himself is our peace. He himself is love. He himself is life. He does not make life better. He is life. Any pastor who talks about the virtues of faith, hope, and love, with Jesus as some implied tangential source, is not feeding his flock well.<\/p>\n
2. We speak Christ as moral exemplar. We tell people to be nice because Jesus was nice. We tell them to be sweet because Jesus was sweet, good because Jesus was good, hard-working because Jesus was hard-working, loving because Jesus was loving. This is all well and good, but you could substitute \u201cMother Theresa\u201d or even \u201cOprah\u201d for \u201cJesus\u201d and essentially have the same message.<\/p>\n
3. We avoid the real problem \u2013 sin \u2013 and therefore either ignore the real solution \u2013 the cross \u2013 or confuse its meaning. In many churches, not only is sin never mentioned \u2013 Joel Osteen, for instance, flat out says he doesn\u2019t like to talk about it basically because it hurts people\u2019s feelings \u2013 the cross is rarely mentioned. And when the cross is mentioned, because we don\u2019t want to talk about sin, it becomes instead the great affirmation of our special-ness, rather than the great punishment for our unholiness. The cross becomes not the intersection of God\u2019s justice and mercy but the symbol of God\u2019s positive feelings about our undeniable lovability.<\/p>\n
In all of these instances, and others, people are inspired and enthused, but they are moved about God\u2019s recognition of their own awesomeness, not about the glories of Christ. The capacity is enlarged with our growing self-esteem.<\/p>\n
Even angels long to gaze into the life-giving riches of the gospel of grace. We prefer to drink deeply from the well into which we\u2019re gazing \u2013 our navels.<\/p>\n
Pastors, inspiration sells. But only Jesus transforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jared C. Wilson There is a pastor whose Twitter feed I occasionally read, but I shouldn\u2019t, because it absolutely drives me nuts. A large portion of my reaction is tied to my own issues, I\u2019m sure, but I see in his broadcasts an almost pathological intention not to mention Jesus. And as I thirst for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"twitterCardType":"","cardImageID":0,"cardImage":"","cardTitle":"","cardDesc":"","cardImageAlt":"","cardPlayer":"","cardPlayerWidth":0,"cardPlayerHeight":0,"cardPlayerStream":"","cardPlayerCodec":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}