the gospel according to Taylor...
I was in the car with my youngest, Taylor, a few days ago. She was singing something in the back seat and I inquired as to the song she was butchering. She responded immediately, “Jesus died on the cross.” I think it’s amazing that most three years olds know very little about Jesus save this one fact. In almost every other arena of life parents are trying to guard their children from morbid discussions and images of death and blood and gore, but not when it comes to Jesus, we want them to digest these otherwise R-rated topics like vanilla wafers in Sunday School.
I thought I would fire back another question to see if I could keep this dialogue afloat. “Why did Jesus die on the cross, Tay?” Without hesitation she blurted out, “To make our sins feel better.” I chuckled. I chuckled some more. I’m not sure why, but little kids think of the most palatable heresy. They mix metaphors and whip up some of the best little theological word plays. It happens all the time.
I wonder how many Christians believe that Jesus died to take away their sins and live like Jesus died to make their sins feel better. It seems like a lot do to me. Christians seem to feel better and better about their sins every year. Christians don’t seem offended by sin much these days, but what’s worse, sin doesn’t seem too offended by Christians. Sin feels pretty good around church, it’s gotten used to church. Sin seems to be feeling better and better about itself all the time thanks to the shed blood of Jesus giving it the TLC it needs to survive. People are “getting saved” and “staying lost”…it’s wonderful. They even get baptized to show how much they love this “steal of a deal”…get Jesus and keep sinning. This is a gospel that people can’t get enough of.
You can be passionate about your faith and your sin. Isn’t that fantastic! Finally, there’s an option for those of us that aren’t necessarily drawn to holiness. We can have our cake and eat it, too! And boy, do I love cake! People don’t have to worry about behavior, because we all know that what God really cares about is our “heart” and thankfully our behavior doesn’t indicate a darn thing about where our heart is at. Whew! What really matters is that you have a winsome personality. That covers a multitude of sins these days. But what am I saying?...who needs a covering for sins when you believe that Jesus died to make them feel better? How convenient.
So what should we say then, should we sin that grace should abound? Heck ya. Live it up. There is no way to show Jesus that you love him more than by getting better and better at making sin feel better and better. This, after all, is Taylor’s theology of salvation and we all know that out of the mouths of babes God ordains praise. So why feel convicted over sin when you can feel comfortable with it?
Eat, drink and be merry…join the crowd.
I thought I would fire back another question to see if I could keep this dialogue afloat. “Why did Jesus die on the cross, Tay?” Without hesitation she blurted out, “To make our sins feel better.” I chuckled. I chuckled some more. I’m not sure why, but little kids think of the most palatable heresy. They mix metaphors and whip up some of the best little theological word plays. It happens all the time.
I wonder how many Christians believe that Jesus died to take away their sins and live like Jesus died to make their sins feel better. It seems like a lot do to me. Christians seem to feel better and better about their sins every year. Christians don’t seem offended by sin much these days, but what’s worse, sin doesn’t seem too offended by Christians. Sin feels pretty good around church, it’s gotten used to church. Sin seems to be feeling better and better about itself all the time thanks to the shed blood of Jesus giving it the TLC it needs to survive. People are “getting saved” and “staying lost”…it’s wonderful. They even get baptized to show how much they love this “steal of a deal”…get Jesus and keep sinning. This is a gospel that people can’t get enough of.
You can be passionate about your faith and your sin. Isn’t that fantastic! Finally, there’s an option for those of us that aren’t necessarily drawn to holiness. We can have our cake and eat it, too! And boy, do I love cake! People don’t have to worry about behavior, because we all know that what God really cares about is our “heart” and thankfully our behavior doesn’t indicate a darn thing about where our heart is at. Whew! What really matters is that you have a winsome personality. That covers a multitude of sins these days. But what am I saying?...who needs a covering for sins when you believe that Jesus died to make them feel better? How convenient.
So what should we say then, should we sin that grace should abound? Heck ya. Live it up. There is no way to show Jesus that you love him more than by getting better and better at making sin feel better and better. This, after all, is Taylor’s theology of salvation and we all know that out of the mouths of babes God ordains praise. So why feel convicted over sin when you can feel comfortable with it?
Eat, drink and be merry…join the crowd.
Comments