examining your faith
How might you build in a practice of consistently examining your faith against the litmus test of Jesus’ humanity and grace?
Mark 5 : 3, 4, and 9
He lived among the tombs, and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain, for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces, and no one had the strength to subdue him. Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" He replied, "My name is Legion, for we are many."
Given how he had been treated by others, this man assumed that Jesus was there to torment him as he wrestled with the many conflicting pulls within him.
Many of our cultural representations of God and Christianity feel like unclean spirits that can possess our thoughts and confuse our actions. We continue to unthinkingly follow paths that seek to control people when the way of Jesus is the opposite.
Instead of shackling and torment, Jesus asks, “What is your name?” I find that to live my faith is to consistently examine what I have learned from cultural Christianity and co-building a new culture that is more rooted in the actual ways of Jesus in my community.
What are some messages of cultural Christianity that you have deconstructed or are in the process of deconstructing?
How might you build in a practice of consistently examining your faith against the litmus test of Jesus’ humanity and grace?