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Are you a demigod?

I was sitting in church this morning and the pastor spoke about “modeling” Christianity and the need to find someone to “model” after. It is true that I would like to be a good model of God's grace, although much of today's teaching on the subject takes it in a different direction. The modeling I heard about this morning sounded good and probably tickled a few ears, however one of the problems with this philosophy that I see is that this “model” is usually created by a person pushing their version of a Christian agenda. You see, the whole premise of a model is wrong, unless of course Jesus is your model. You know Jesus he is the one who dealt in unconditional love. The one who used mercy, grace and kindness to upend the religious zealots of his day and their wayward philosophies passed off for godliness. The one who deals with people on an individual basis and not some preconceived idea of cookie cutter Christianity where everyone looks the same, talks the same and interacts the same way. The one who understands that each individual person is made in the image of God. An individual who needs to be dealt with on an individual basis. We have lost sight of people individually in our zeal to get them inside the mold we have designed for them.

The second problem is that the place of this “model” is pushed to happen only at church. Yet Jesus dealt with people outside of the synagogue throughout his ministry. The 12 disciples, Nicodemus, the woman at the well, the woman taken in adultery, his mother at the wedding, the feeding of the 5,000, I could go on but I think the point is adequately illustrated. Finding individual people in all their difficulties and problems and bringing unconditional love accompanied by mercy, grace and truth will have a greater impact upon our society than having a soul winning and/or a discipleship program.

The third problem is that the outsider is asked to be the pursuer of this model by picking a person to model after. Maybe that is why no one at this church I attended this morning even said hi to me. I guess they were looking for me to be outgoing an extroverted and pursue them. Having someone look up to you becomes a place for pride and leads to idolization and hero worship, why not point them to Jesus?

Lastly the biggest problem is that I already have an example to follow. The one who formed me in my mother’s womb. The one who created me and every other human being in his own image. The one who knows everything there is to know about me. Why on God’s green earth would I look to model after a man when I have God incarnate to look to?
You see the end of a modeling philosophy creates clicks, it creates a religious cast system along with making demigods (making someone other than Jesus the goal), it takes honor and glory away from God, it creates a judgmental criteria for comparison and it creates a bad homiletic to misinterpret the Scriptures with.

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