For many, I’m sure this last week was marked by rabbits, Easter candy, and Easter candy in the form of rabbits. (any holiday that give you the excuse to consume animal sized chocolate is fine in my book, as long as it’s dark). Here in Nicaragua it involved a lot of mariachi bands ushering seven foot glitter Jesus down the street. For others it meant drinking a lot of alcohol and hanging out at the lake all day, which is absolute recipe for lobster burn.
I did none of these things, choosing instead to break copyright laws and stream The Passion of the Christ. During the film there are several flashbacks to Jesus’ final supper. It is hard to imagine how difficult it must have been for Jesus to try to boil down what he thought would be most important for his disciples to remember.
People don’t tend to mince words on their deathbeds. They try to package all they want to communicate into something that might be short enough to put on a tombstone. Watching the Passion made me think about what I would tell someone if I knew it was the last time I would talk to them.
I don’t plan on dying anytime soon, but here would be my list of important things to pass along to my followers. If died as a martyr for my friends, maybe some of these would end up hand stitched on pillows or turned into corny song renditions.
#1-Time spent with Jesus will fix any problem.
There is a big asterisk on this one. Time spent with Jesus doesn’t just mean reading your bible or praying, it means consciously entering his presence through these acts. And fixing any problem doesn’t always mean the way we would fix it, sometimes it means he will fix something in us. But the long and short of it is, that if we genuinely spend time with God then he will help us. I want every single one of my friends to drive their car up into the woods and spend the weekend alone with Jesus. No facebook. Get real.
#2- If you know Jesus, your life is not your own.
If you haven’t been blown out of the water by the overwhelming love of Jesus, then disregard this one. You keep doing you. But for the rest of us, absolute surrender is not just a song lyrics, it’s a way of life that seeks to know God’s heart and radically obey it. He has the right over every area of our lives and we are to live this way in practice and not just in word. Some people give Jesus a key to most doors of their life, but not the master key. If he’s your master, give him the master key.
#3- Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
I love when Todd White says ‘I’m free from you because I’m free from me. I’ve never been rejected by anyone because I only need to be accepted by God’. I know, sounds a little stick-it-to-the-man-ish or rebellious but it’s true freedom in Christ. When you understand that nothing can change God’s love for you found in Jesus, and when all your identity and peace is wrapped up in that, you become untouchable. You can truly help other people because you don’t get hurt or offended anymore. People get offended when they are looking for something from people that they should be getting from God.
#4- Get your freaking act together
I told myself for three years that I needed a normal prayer time. I knew that having more time with Jesus would change my life, but I just kept putting it off. So many people are living miserable lives because they know what they need to do and aren’t doing it. Your life won’t change until you are so sick of the way you are living that you get super drastic and weird. People should think you are overdoing it.
#5 Prioritize
Just sit down and figure out what is most important to you. My Dad turned down promotions for years because it would require working weekends and family was his priority. Your actions speak louder than words. If you say God is most important or your family is most important, or winning the x-games is most important but you don’t live it then you are just fooling yourself.
Aaaand- I have officially started to sound like some self-help coach. They write these lists of ten things that you need to do in order to live a successful life. Yes, it’s important to simplify. Yes, it’s important to run ten miles a day and only eat vegetables. But the beauty of the system is that if you only remember #1 and just spend time with Jesus, he will work everything out in the end. All the other points are really just things he will teach you in the secret place anyway.
So if the family was gathering round and I was trying to croak out some comical last expression to be memorialized, I would probably just say time spent with Jesus will fix any problem.
For years I knew that Jesus was the remedy, I just didn’t understand the application process. Is Jesus topical cream? An extra strength, quick release tablet taken twice a day by mouth with food? Does he have side effects ? (You better believe it)
Coming to Jesus as the remedy means coming to him first, and as the only result. If he is the garlic bread sticks accompanying the main dish solution of netflix marathons and late night facebook image tailoring, then you will still end up hungry and frustrated. You might even end up thinking Jesus doesn’t work, because technically you tried him and nothing changed. But wait until you have nowhere else to turn and you are willing to interrupt social engagements and deny yourself tv out of desperation.
My buddy Frank says ‘show me anyone who prays and fasts and seeks Jesus for three days and comes away unchanged’. Maybe someday this will happen to you and you will end up like me, rambling on in a long blogpost trying to convince people of how simple it all is.
If I ever see your foolish rambly blog post I will smile and nod and be happy that you got it. Cheers.
