BLOGGING TOWARD SUNDAY…

I was coming back from Statesville last Wednesday morning when I happened to notice the bumper sticker on the car in front of me.  You’ve all seen this one, probably hundreds of times, and it makes a very telling comment on the state of religion in America.  Can you guess what it is?  “HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS.”  Now I didn’t honk, but I’ve done a lot of thinking about that bumper sticker this week, and it occurs to me that there ought to be more to “loving Jesus” than honking your car horn!  In fact, on anybody’s list of ways to love Jesus, horn-honking ought to be right down at the very bottom.  But the truth is that for a lot of people who call themselves Christian, horn-honking is about as far as it goes. 

Loving Jesus has nothing to do pushing down on a button on the steering wheel of your car.  Loving Jesus has to do with seeking justice, loving your neighbors and your enemies, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, providing decent housing for the poor, visiting the sick and the imprisoned.  That’s what it means to love Jesus.  He isn’t interested in the sound of your horn.  What he wants is not noise, but action!  What he wants is love, love that is acted out, love that reaches out, love that expresses itself in concrete ways.  Love is not a feeling…if it were, Jesus could not have commanded us to do it.  Emotions are not subject to the will, but our actions are, which leaves us without excuse.

Filed under: Blogging Toward Sunday