The Internet Monk on Christless Preaching

"At the moment that preacher stood up, one person in that room needed desperately to hear the hope that is mine in Jesus. Despair stalks me. Satan and life dominating sins war against my soul. Religion, motivation, church, music, the pretense of piety, the rituals of synergistic schemes of salvation- all offer me nothing. Christians have failed me. Institutional religion mocks me. Friends do not know me.

Give me Jesus, give me Jesus, one soul cries.

Can someone sing “In The Cross of Christ I Glory” as I turn my back and walk away from this kind of religion? I’m looking for the one who, when asked for a great life, said sell all you have and come follow me to the cross."

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My thoughts: This is the kind of metacognition we ought to engage in. Where is the separation of Christ and everything else in your life? Where should you put the scalpel; what is cultural, personal, and then who is Christ and how does He truly relate to you?

For me, theological thought, my cultural ideals of piety, and the importance of friends, while all good in a way, can intermingle with how I act out Christ. I place them in the same pile, forgetting that culture, friends, and theological theories are passive and in ways transient. Christ, however, is unchanging. He is the one constant, God's plan of salvation for those who trust Him. To allow my relationship with Him to be marred by my own conventions instead of allowing those to be purified by Him, is a sin, and I thank God I have His mercy.