Give the People What They Want

I was reading an article this morning about the failure of the Facebook "Home" Phone.  This was a software cover that took over your home screen and made it all about Facebook.  It was launched with much fanfare and anticipation.  They designed a new phone to be especially good at it and sold it through AT&T.  Well, it has turned into a complete failure.  AT&T first reduced the price from $99 to $0.99 and now is discontinuing it.   It has mostly one and two star ratings in Google Play.  Turns out, people just don't want it.  They are now redesigning it into what they think people do want.  Good luck to them.

This is a cornerstone of American Buisness.  You give the customer what they want.  We will spend money and time on the things that we want.  Make it good for us, easy for us, better for us, and we're there.  Make it harder for us and we're out. " Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door."  The thing is, sometimes that mousetrap is for the customers!  So many adds on the internet promise things people want to try to get them to click.  Secret paths to success, fitness, or low prices.  Secret pills that will make us thinner, longer, hairier, prettier.  Many people know that these adds are not to be trusted, but they work enough that they still cover many pages that I go to, including some respectable sites (Here's looking at you WCSH6).

Giving us what we want and what we perceive ourselves to need is always a good way to attract us.  Frito-Lay, Coca-cola, Burger King, and their corporate rivals didn't become big by making us eat healthy food.  Economically and physically, we really don't need that food, but boy do we want it.

Satan is the ultimate salesman.  He knows that we need a saving relationship with Jesus Christ but he also knows that that's not what we naturally want.  He knows that we are driven by a self-centric desire to be happy, comfortable, pleasured.  So he has come up with an endless variety of lifestyles and approaches to attract us.  Even if we have a greater understanding of needing to move toward God, the Great Salesman has that covered too.  Come to God, say these words, offer these prayers, and all your pains will go away, your debt will diminsh, you will have the life you want right now.  It sounds good.  I get the God I feel I need as well as still get to have what I want.  Bonus!   In other words, christians who are smart enough not to click on the obviously shady promises of a sketchy "miracle pill" ad are instead lured by the respectable that still just promises the same thing, just with better production values and more skillful presentation.

The simply truth is, the Gospel is about Jesus.  When the Gospel is "sold" as being about us, it is not Jesus selling it.  Jesus said,

"If any of you want to be my follower, you must stop thinking about yourself and what you want. You must be willing to carry the cross that is given to you for following me. Any of you who try to save the life you have will lose it. But you who give up your life for me will find true life. (Matthew 16:24-25)

Its pretty clear.  When we come to Jesus because we are trying to get stuff for us, we are not truly coming to Him.   There was a man who watched the power of the Spirit in the apostles and he saw the clear attraction.  This would draw people!   What a buisness opportunity.  He tried to get in on the ground floor.

Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was bestowed through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money, saying, "Give this authority to me as well, so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit." But Peter said to him, "May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! "You have no part or portion in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. "Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray the Lord that, if possible, the intention of your heart may be forgiven you. (Acts 8:18-22)

Notice that this issue isn't simply his money, its his heart.  Simon wanted power but he needed repentance (which he avoided, keep reading his story),  Simon, even though he wanted to gain the power to help people (do good) was in it for himself, not for Christ.  When we approach God with the idea that we are going to prosper as a result, we have turned the Gospel on its end and perverted it into something that is about us, not about Jesus.

BUT, doesn't God want to bless us?  YES!, but not for us, for Him.  And that blessing is not always material.  Material only matters to God when it leads to the eternal.  God is no fool and He is investing in a glorious future, not a temporary situation.  When we are focused on NOW instead of THEN we are following Satan's thinking not God's.  Paul makes it clear that anything God had given him was only good for knowing God and causing others to know Him.  Since the salesmanship is so slick and uses the Gospel, how can you know if it is Jesus or Satan?  One big test: REPENTANCE.  We require repentance to come to God because we are sinful.  When repentance is left out, it is because that doesn't make us feel good.  Here's a few of quotes to consider.  Look for whether it focuses on self or on Christ and whether repentance is mentioned.

“It’s vital that you accept yourself and learn to be happy with who God made you to be. If you want to truly enjoy your life, you must be at peace with yourself.”

“You may think there is a lot wrong with you, but there is also a lot right with you.”

“You can take pride in yourself without comparing yourself to anybody else. If you run your race and be the best that you can be, then you can feel good about yourself.”

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. (Romans 7:18)

Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? (Romans 2:4)

I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death. (2 Corinthians 7:9-10)

I'm very troubled by the number of teachers who spend a lot of time trying to lure people to "Jesus" by offering them self improvement and personal advancement without a clear teaching of repentance.  No matter how altruistic, a "sales pitch" that focuses on us rather than on Christ is a misguided and ultimately satanic trap.  The Gospel is not about us.  It is for but not about us. Its about repentance and Jesus Christ.   It is about how much I can surrender to Christ, how I can know Him, His suffering, and His death so that I may know His resurrection.

But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:7-11)

If you want a clear, non-salesman, view of truly coming to Christ, read Hebrews 11.  It will show that for His glory, God gave some material blessings, but that many, for God's glory, experienced some pretty rough earthly circumstances and they were joyful and eager for that because it wasn't about NOW, it was about THEN and it wasn't about THEM it was about HIM.

So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. (Mark 6:12)

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." (Luke 13:1-5)

May we work on coming to Christ each day and leaving behind all our wants and perceived needs and instead make our life about Christ.  May we live lives of repentance, sacrifice, and the joy of His kingdom coming.  HE is what we need! Check out this wonderful song by Laura Story called "Blessings."