28 Sep The Bully Who Thought He Loved Jesus

When I was growing up, there was a kid my age who came from a devout Baptist family. I once heard an adult observe how good the kids were in that family and how they were faithfully in church. The kid my age often spoke of and defended Jesus to others. He was also the biggest bully in school.

He taunted and terrorized me and other kids (although I also felt I was his primary target). Yet, he would also encourage people to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. He had no doubt that his eternity with Jesus was set.  After I came to Christ in 2016 at age 55, I began to think about this person from time to time.

I now understand that what he had was plenty of religion and zero relationship with Jesus. Truth is, there are plenty of adults living in the same situation. No, they don’t say “Let me tell you about my Jesus” in one breath and “excuse me while I go beat up that kid” the next. But if they claim to love Jesus in one breath and claim to hate their enemies in the next, they are the same walking contradiction as the kid from my school days.

Saying yes to Jesus can happen in a single moment. But it’s the beginning of a lifelong process where we accept more and more Jesus into our hearts each day. The Apostle Paul put it this way:

12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12-14 (NIV)

Compounding the problem is the fact that many of us who have said yes to Christ are much better at assessing others’ faith walk than our own. We can spot a bully who loves Jesus a mile away, but fail to see that we ourselves can be more about religion and ritual (box checking) than a relationship with Jesus. Conversely, we can make the mistake of comparing our faith walk with other believers and find ourselves coming up short. So what’s the answer to avoiding either of these extremes? Oswald Chambers puts it well:

Our relationship to Jesus is to be the same as his relationship to the Father. If instead we think we are being mastered, it is proof that we have no master. To take this attitude toward Jesus is to be far from the relationship he wants. He wants us in a relationship in which he is easily and effortlessly the Master, so much so that we aren’t even conscious of it. All we know is that we love him, and that we are his to rule. (Oswald Chambers, “My Utmost for His Highest” devotional for September 22)

When we truly surrender our hearts to Jesus, He will do the job of making us look like Him. Stop trying with ritual and religion and start enjoying a life with Jesus!

Pastor Jerry Bader