EX CHRISTIANS FOR JESUS - Kingdom of Grace

EX CHRISTIANS FOR JESUS!

WHAT? What the heck are you talking about, you moron, if you are for Jesus, aren’t you a Christian?

Not really, at least not really by American “Christian” standards, besides, who is your Jesus? For those of us who did not grow up within the walls of “Our Beloved Synod,” (gak), we are quite often ex Christians for Jesus because we had no concept of who the real Jesus is. We who burned out on Christianity, burned out because we had the wrong one, we had a mean Jesus and not the real Jesus.

WOULD THE REAL JESUS PLEASE STAND UP?

Jesus is the one who washes you, but then tells you that through your good works and righteous living, you need to maintain your salvation.

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Jesus is the one who demands that you must (with every head bowed and every eye closed) raise your hand. And now that you were dumb enough get caught doing that, and the pastor saw you do it, now you have to stand up, walk down the aisle, and have to say this prayer (strange, I never saw this one in the Bible???). And now that you have done that, you have to go to the back room where our counselors will write down your credit card number (okay, not really, but, you really should tithe your 10% like a good Jew). Now that you have done that, you have to get plugged in to the church. AND IF YOU DON'T DO IT, YOU WILL BE LEFT BEHIND IN THE RAPTURE AND GET YOUR HEAD CHOPPED OFF!!!

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What ever happened to Jesus plus nothing equals salvation? If you have to do ANYTHING, then Jesus must need your help to save you. Like I always say, “either Jesus alone is your Savior, or He isn't.” Which is it going to be?

Jesus is the one who wants you to be happy, stupid and rich, just like me. You see, Jesus (even though He was never rich Himself and His kingdom is not of this world) wants you to be wealthy beyond your wildest dreams and live in a mansion and drive a sports car oh yeah and live without any pain or suffering, to His glory. Now all that you need to do, is send me all the money that you have. No need to worry about your bills and obligations, God will take care of that after you screw over your credit rating. After all, what Jesus is really about is your stupid fat lazy butt getting ahead without any effort or sacrifice on your part. You friggen Holy Roller welfare recipient.

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YOU MORON! Maybe if you would have read your Bible, you wouldn't be bankrupt now.

Jesus, oh, that guy, yeah he was a teacher, a good one who came to teach about love, peacefulness and justice (just like Gandhi). Funny how in Matthew 10, Jesus says that He did not come to bring peace, but a sword (don’t get me wrong, swords are cool, not as cool as guns, but that’s for another rant). Anyway, you are silly if you think that Jesus is God, of course he wasn’t, he was just a really good guy, like the Buddha and Mohammad.

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Jesus clearly claimed to be God and He really was not so nice, especially if you thought that you are a good person like the Pharisees. (Matthew 23:27, Matthew 3:7, 12:24, 23:33, Luke 3:7, Mark 7:6, Luke 12:56, 13:15... and many more)

Whatever you think about Jesus that is not directly from Scripture, it is probably wrong.

How do we know who the real Jesus is then? He is the one who is all and only about the forgiveness of your sins.

Plain and simple, thats what He came to do, thats what He did and thats what we have in Him. He came lowely, born in a stable (probably a cave where thy kept animals) and He was laid to rest in a manger, a regular old food trough. Pretty lowly indeed, but lowly, so that we know that no matter what sort of screw ups we are and no matter what our position in life, Jesus made Himself to be one of us.

He lived a perfectly righteous life without any sin whatsoever on our behalf because we are so unable to stop ourselves for sinning and we could not in the least be righteous on our own, so He did it for us. He came and exchanged His perfect righteousness for all of your wretchedness (2 Corinthians 5:21) apart from you doing anything in the least to earn it (Ephesians 2:8-9).

This is the real Jesus, the one who allowed Himself to beat nearly to death and allowed Himself to die the death of a criminal for the crimes against God that you and I committed, those crimes that He was completely innocent of.

This is the real Jesus, the one who dies your death and takes your punishment that you have coming and in the midst of this injustice, He cries out to His Father in heaven saying “forgive them for they don't know what they are doing.” This is the real Jesus who inhales the sins of the world into Himself and exhales His life onto the world. This is the real Jesus, as we see God in the flesh, naked, beaten and pierced through the side, hanging dead on a criminal's execution device, a cross.

WOULD THE REAL JESUS PLEASE STAND UP?

Three days later, He did exactly that as the grave could not hold the God of life. And in His bodily resurrection, He promised us that we who have faith in Him will also be raised from the dead.

We ex Christians for Jesus have given up on looking to our good works for salvation (thats actually Jewish and not Christian anyway), we ex Christians for Jesus look to Jesus who is the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).

We ex Christians for Jesus know that we do not have to be good little boys and girls in order to be saved. We know that it is not at all about us, but only about Jesus. The funny thing is that when you develop the proper theology of an ex Christian for Jesus, you more and more, over time, grow to hate your sin. The other thing that is sort of funny is that you have less and less of a problem admitting what a wretched person you are and you are then free to bask in the glory of the real Jesus who would have you do none other (Luke 10:40ish).

The belief in the real Jesus would have us do nothing but proclaim Christ Crucified for the remission of sins, like that crazy old St. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 2 that we should.
Ex Christians for Jesus are actually just tired of people saying that we need to move beyond the cross and resurrection to deeper things like Christian Finances, Christian Dating, Christian Parenting, Christian Taxidermy, Christian Motorcycle Repair and the like. We know that the true faith clings only to its object, and the object of a believer in Christ is none other than Christ Himself.

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?

Are you looking at yourself and what a good person you are? You're not a good person you know (Romans 3:9-18). You and I are filthy, empty handed beggars in the presence of the one true God who alone is good and righteous. WE SUCK!

If you are looking at yourself and your good works at all, you will come up empty, or you will try to justify your own sins as “not so bad.” OOOH I hate the “their not so bad sins.” Those are the ones that get up in a heap O doo doo. The ones that we justify away are the ones that we hold outside of the real Jesus' forgiveness. Those are the really dangerous ones.

Stop being so freaken self righteous and confess with us that you are a dirt bag before God, but confess even more that Jesus has taken you out of your filth, washed you in baptism (Titus 3:5) and coated us with His own clean righteousness (Gal 3:26-27).

Thats about all I have to say about that.
The Ranting Reverend