Following Jesus is not for the faint of heart. Contrary to what you may have heard, his greatest goal is not to give you your best life now. He doesn’t call us to comfort. He calls us to come and die: die to our selfishness, die to our self-sufficiency, die to ourselves so that we might find new life in him.
There’s a reason why the way of Jesus seems like foolishness to those who haven’t yet decided to follow him. The life he calls us to seems so contrary to how the rest of society tells us to live. Jesus calls us to bless those who persecute us, pray for those who curse us, care for those who can do nothing for us in return. What’s more, according to Jesus, the greatest in His kingdom are the servants, and we need to be willing to lose our life if we hope to find it. In other words, if we truly hope to live, we must first be willing to die to the ways we’ve learned to live.
Welcome to the upside down Kingdom of God.
Though, on second thought, perhaps we’re looking at it the wrong way. After all, God’s the rightful King, we’re just the stewards that He entrusted with the care of His creation. So maybe His kingdom isn’t the one that’s inverted. Maybe we’re the ones living upside down, we’ve just grown so accustomed to it that we don’t notice it anymore.
Consider for a moment the crooked ways of thinking we’ve normalized: we are taught to win at all costs, even if in winning we hurt our neighbors and neglect our families. We are taught to idolize the powerful, even if they use their power to benefit themselves rather than to help others. We are taught that in order to rise up, we need to push others down. We are taught to celebrate our freedom to do whatever we want, even if the vices we run to end up enslaving us. The prophet Isaiah had a stern warning for people who lived in this upside down sort of way:
“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil... Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight. Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks, who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent. Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel.” (Isaiah 5:20-24)
Isaiah’s warning is worth considering. Those who live contrary to the way of God will not prosper, at least not for long. Though they might blaze brightly for a moment, they will be destroyed by the very things they are most proud of, their so-called freedoms will enslave them. As Solomon noted , “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.” (Proverbs 14:12)
It's ironic that the way of the world which seems so very comfortable and safe ultimately leads to death. Meanwhile, the way of Christ that calls us to take up our cross and die to ourselves leads to life that is truly life. We each have a choice: Which way will I go? To which Kingdom will I pledge my allegiance? Whose values will will shape my values? It's the most important decision you will ever make.
Choose wisely.
