Relentless Thoughts

Sometimes I'm really bummed that I have to call myself a Christian. It's not that I'm bummed to BE a Christian, quite the contrary, but all the negative associations that go along with that word break my heart. It kills me that the adjectives that many associate with Christian are judgemental, ethnocentric, egotistical, and condemning. Man, have we screwed things up. Whatever happened to living lives of unending, relentless compassion, love and grace? I know that there are Christians living out that life, but it seems the majority of us appear as judgemental hypocrites to the rest of the world, especially if you claim to be a *gasp* evangelical or fundamentalist Christian, which I do. Last night I had a discussion with my roommate about how I feel called to live and it set my mind turning on how often I fall short of what it is I claim is my goal. I want to live in the image of Christ. It seems so simple and straightforward, but if I'm going to be fully and completely honest, to REALLY live like Christ scares me. I can handle it to a point, to love my neighbor, to serve others with my gifts, talents, and blessings, that's within reason, but once we start getting into the big sacrifices, well I'm freaked out. Can I really give up all this world has to offer? Now, I believe that we are called to be a part of this world, so I'm not suggesting thatI go move into some convent somewhere and convert to a monastic lifestyle. But at the same time, I wonder how much, in good conscience, I can live a life of luxury. When I was in South America I actually found myself envious of the poor there because there weren't so many obstacles between them and God. They couldn't afford the worldly distractions we pad our lives with. And so often lately I find myself questioning a lot of things about our society... so I turn to Scripture...and it only gets worse. I find I am unable to even argue for any sort of materialism. We can try and rationalize that we give to the poor, that God wants us to be happy, yadda, yadda, but at the end of the day I just keep thinking that Jesus didn't go out and work in a soup kitchen for a bit, then go back to a nice cozy place to sleep at night. Should we all be taking a vow of poverty? I don't know, but a life of excess just doesn't seem to fit. I'm pretty confident that Jesus wouldn't have driven an Audi, worked 80 hours a week to climb the corporate ladder, or spend money on exotic vacations purely for self-pleasure...the guy gave everything he had away, down to his very life and birthright for those who despised him...he probably wouldn't even save for his retirement. So I'm not looking to tell anyone how to live here, these are just the thoughts that seem to persist in my mind as of late. And they are thoughts that both excite and scare me. To what extreme do we go? How do live for God and love this world as completely as he did? It's also got me thinking a lot about war, and my ideas on that might be changing. Guess I'll save that for another blog. Feel free to tell me what you guys think here and if you've been chewing on any of these ideas, let me know and maybe we can chat.