Jesus Is My Homeboy Pt. 3

When you really boil it down, why do we spread this "needy Jesus" philosophy anyway?  I think there are three reasons:

1) It is much easier to share a "soft gospel" with an unbeliever than it is to share a "fire and brimstone Gospel"
2) It is an excuse that we lean on to justify our sin
3) We don't know any better

I know first-hand how tempting it is to water down the Gospel when you are sharing it with an unbeliever (and even more so when it's a confrontational unbeliever).  You want so bad for them to believe the truth of the Gospel.  In the heat of the conversation it almost seems that winning an argument becomes superior to being factually correct.  And it's much easier to do that when Jesus is portrayed as our buddy than when He is, you know, lumped in with all that judgement and wrath and sending "innocent people who have never heard of Him to hell" (as the confrontational unbeliever says).  We run into some serious problems when the goal is to get someone to "pray the prayer" as opposed to repent and turn their life over to Christ.

Jesus Is My Homeboy Pt. 2

One of the dangerous places that the "needy Jesus" theology leads to is ignorance of a very real enemy.  A soft Gospel focuses on the individual and not Christ, the created and not the Creator.  A very real and present spiritual enemy does not have much room in the "needy Jesus" theologian's life.  It just doesn't fit.  From experience, I know.

Let's be clear, our focus and our attention should be on Christ, not on the forces of the enemy.  To focus on the enemy is just an inversion of the "needy Jesus" theology.  Where one focuses on the individual the other focuses on the enemy.  Neither one focuses on the only thing worthy of devotion, Christ. 

But to ignore the spiritual battle that rages around us is so dangerous.  I'm convinced one of the most effective tools of the enemy on the Western world is to convince us that he does not exist. 

There is an amazing passage in Luke where Jesus gives us a glimpse into this spiritual battle:

"Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers."     (Luke 22:31-32)