The Gospel According to Disney

When you believe upon the Son
Makes no difference what you've done
Everything your heart desires
Will come to you
(To the tune of When you wish upon a Star)
  
      This is the Gospel that most preach today. Now if you have been keeping up with my past blogs you are probably tired of me talking about this, but yet I keep hearing this same message over and over so I guess I need to keep addressing it to look at different aspects of it and understand what the message really is.
     The message that keeps coming out whether from the small Baptist church to the non denominational Mega Church is usually this-
Simply ask God to forgive you your sins and believe in Jesus by saying this prayer.
 People that is not the Gospel of the Bible. We have been sold an American Dream, Disney style Gospel that has lost it's redeeming power and leads people not to be reconciled to God but to have their own desires satisfied.
   In fact no matter what church we go to it is a gamble whether they truly understand and present the gospel according to the Scriptures regardless of denominational association. The Gospel that is being preached is steeped in a magical fantasy. Recognize two principles (Your a sinner and Jesus died for those sins) and say a magic prayer and you will be saved and get to go to Heaven. Here is the problem with that idea. First of all its not magic, it is not a dream come true scenario. We are being taught that God does not want his children to suffer he wants you to be happy and taken care of. This is partially true...He does want good things for you but they come through suffering. I know when my kids do without and suffer that they are developing the long lost idea of Character. This will make them in the future have good things that I want for them. The same is true with God. As we suffer it makes us more like Christ and in the end we will inherit the Kingdom...A very good thing. Men are so earthly minded that we just want to be happy here and have our desires satisfied now. Paul said in Philippians those type of people are enemies of the Cross.
   Understand the Gospel is that Jesus paid a price for our sin and He was raised from the dead to bring us righteousness and reconcile us to God. So Redemption comes at a price in fact we are told in 1 Corinthians that we were bought with a price, Romans 6 says that we have become slaves of God and righteousness. This is a principle that if you want to be saved and reconciled we give our lives to Jesus and in Colossians it says that Jesus hides our lives in Him. We are to be following Jesus and working out our salvation. This idea of simply believing in Jesus and not following Him out of the darkness is absolutely unbiblical. Yes, we will sin and mess up. The Gospel is not about being perfect for we are given the righteousness of Christ. However, we see the apostles constantly pleading with the christians to stay away from sin. Why? Because when we are in Sin we are not working out our salvation. Not only can sin be destructive to us personally, but it takes away our devotion to God. So if Jesus died to bring us out of sin how can we still live in it and claim to know Him.
    So understanding that lets look again at this Disney Gospel. Forgiveness of Sins through believing in Jesus. I will admit this is very close to what is written in scripture in some verses and this is why we need to know the Bible completely. First of all Forgiveness of Sins should be repentance. Not a Worldly Sorrow but a Godly repentance that we despise our sin and who we are. Secondly,  believing in Jesus we must understand what that is as well. Believing should read in most of these verses if translated properly as faith. But what is faith? It is commitment. You cannot have someone say they are bought with a price and are willing slaves of God and there not be any commitment involved. The new testament is a covenant between God and Man and in any covenant there is commitment. Now some might argue then that this doesn't display grace and we are totally depraved so how can we willingly commit to God?
   I will address Grace first. Understand that Grace is the Salvation process not the desire to be saved. Jesus is Grace. His death on the Cross was Grace. His allowing us to receive him and follow him is grace. The reconciliation is Grace. It is all done by God through Christ not by us. This is Grace that God redeemed us by his son and his obedience on the Cross. It is like being aboard a prison ship as a prisoner and the prison ship is almost at Alcatraz but the Governor sends a boat up next to the prison ship and calls everyone to get off into the boat who wants to be free. "Now understand when you get on this boat there will be stormy seas and very little food and we can't bring you back to shore right away you will need to sail up to Alaska in order to get off the boat." So now there is cost involved. The boat is the way to freedom but there will be difficulties involved. So only a few prisoners decide to go, because it will be a very uncomfortable and perilous journey. But here is my point... the boat is Grace, and not our decision to get on the boat. The idea that Grace must be nice and comfortable and pleasing to our flesh is a false notion. Grace can be difficult but not as bad as the end result of death and Hell. We are so spoiled in our lives that if God offers us grace it means a completely free ride of fun and fortune. No, absolutely not! Grace was costly as it cost Jesus all that he could give so don't expect that it will be a carnival of pleasure for you. We will have joy and strength absolutely, but those are our munitions along the way. These are the spiritual supplies that keep us going given by Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
    This brings me to my second point...If we are totally depraved how do we commit to God. Well, this is where the Holy Spirit and Word of God come in. They do their work and we often try to over analyze this point but it is simply some heed the call and trust Christ and others don't. They don't because of the cost involved of giving up their lives to Him, they don't because they are not genuinely repentant to the Creator. I will be the first to admit I don't understand why I repented and gave my life to Christ, but others don't. I don't get it, but the fact is I did. The Fact is that with the help of the Spirit and Scripture I saw the light of Jesus and followed it.  But it was a committed trust in Christ and not simply a magic prayer. If I hadn't then you wouldn't have to be reading this long tedious blog right now.
     So how do we suffer? How do we know we are committed? I can't give you a detailed answer, but the Bible tells us to examine our faith. Suffering I believe can be comparative and personal. In other words how you may suffer may be completely different than how I suffer. How do you know you are committed? Are you bearing fruit? Are you giving up things for Christ? That is commitment. If your not and you are living in Sin whether it be a wrong lifestyle or the lack of doing good then you are probably not committed and following Christ. But this is not something that I can tell you. This is something you must figure out for yourself by going to God and seeking Him.
So this tune seems more apropos:

You must trust upon the Son
Makes no difference what you've done
Turn from all your evil ways
and Follow Him