Self-Centered Christianity

It seems to me that modern-day american Christianity has lost it's way.

Wait, strike that, true Christianity does not lose it's way, but what many of us call Christianity has strayed far from what the early church called Christianity.

We have forgotten the poor and catered to the rich. We have told people that God wants to give them wealth and health, but forgotten that Jesus said "Blessed are you who are poor" and "woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort".

We fight for our rights and our freedoms and forget that Jesus has called us to die to ourselves, to lay down our lives.

We file lawsuits and get our feathers all ruffled when the government takes the ten commandments out of our schools but forget that we are to "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse."

We get angry that Illegal Immigrants are coming into our country and taking "our jobs" when we could be ministering to these people.

We are the biggest advocates for the war in iraq in a blatant contradiction with what Jesus said when he said "love your enemies" and "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you."

How do we reconcile these? We cannot. The plain and simple truth is that we either believe one or the other. You cannot be selfless and dead to self and at the same time fight for your rights and freedoms.

America has adopted a self-centered Christianity, which is no Christianity at all. We have adopted Benjamin Franklin's idea that "God helps those who help themselves", which is not in the bible, by the way.

Biblical Christianity calls for the death of ourselves, the death of our desires, the death of our wants. It tells us to "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves."

It calls for us be radical followers of a radical Christ who denounced the pleasures of this fallen world for the life and light of heaven.

The following scriptures are just a few examples of what I'm talking about.

Luke 6:20-26
"Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22Blessed are you when men hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.

23"Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your
reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.
24"But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
25Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26Woe to you when all men speak well of you,
for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets."

Philippians 2:3
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

Matthew 5:10
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 19:21
Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

James 2:5
Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?

Revelation 3:17
You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.

James 1:27
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Ephesians 4:22
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;

1 Corinthians 13
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.