Checklist Christianity

Did you check the right box? 

I grew up in a church that taught me salvation was absolutely free! That’s right, it cost me nothing because Jesus paid the full price for me. All I had to do was say the magic words in what was called the “sinner’s prayer” and I was in—meaning I got to go to heaven when I died.

Then those little boxes appeared that I was required to check off:

• You must believe that Jesus was born of a virgin . . .

• You must believe that Jesus is God . . .

• You must believe that the Bible is inerrant . . .

• You must believe that God had to punish Jesus for our sins . . .

• You had to believe in the Rapture and a literal thousand-year kingdom . . .

And the list goes on and on. These are the boxes I had to check to remain a full-fledged member of the exclusive “I-am-going-to-heaven” tribe. Yet salvation was free I was told!

But those pesky little boxes kept reappearing. Check this box and that box. Now I didn’t realize it at the time but the implications are pretty clear to me now: If you really want to be a heaven bound Christian then you must check all the appropriate boxes. Those of you who were reared in this tradition know what those boxes are so I don’t have to list them all here.

Yet I was still told all I had to do to get into heaven was take Jesus into my heart and I was home free. And this getting into heaven business became for me the central point of my being a Christian. It was the main thing.

Then I realized something pretty amazing: None of this getting into heaven language is found in the Bible. I searched and I searched and not once did I find the words: “Take Jesus into your heart as your personal Savior and then you will be saved and go to heaven” and the word “free” never appears. Nada! Not once!

Then I realized that there were also no little boxes in the Bible to check off. The Bible really had little to say about what I believed concerning the Rapture or the Second Coming, or whether I believed the Bible to be without error and perfect in its original form, or whether being a member of my particular church tribe was mandatory. The Bible seemed to care less about these things.

But Jesus did give us a formula for what it means to be his follower. Remember Jesus called people to follow him not just believe things about him. This formula is called the “Great Commandment.” It appears in three Gospels. The most compelling context in which this formula appears is in Luke’s Gospel chapter 10, the context in which Jesus tells a famous parable demonstrating what this all looks like in real life (The Good Samaritan).

So what is this formula or this Great Commandment?

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27).

I am going to go out on a limb by saying that this commandment represents the very heart of what it means to be a Christian—and the costs are many.

If you want to talk about being a Christian then this is the point of departure. You want to be saved? Then start by embracing the Great Commandment.

Now here’s the kicker: It’s not free!  Loving God with all that you have is not free. It is costly. Loving your neighbor (a metaphor for anyone) is not free. It’s going to cost you big time.

To love homosexuals in a homophobic church will cost you. To love the poor in a society that believes poor people are what’s wrong with America today is going to cost you. To love your enemy in a society that is still living by the antiquated eye-for-an-eye rule will cost you. To love Mother Earth in caring and nurturing ways is going to cost you in a society that believes the earth is ours to do whatever we please with her.

Salvation is not free my friends. Jesus told his disciples that if they wanted to follow him then they had to die to themselves (their whiteness, their blackness, their ethnicity, their own tribe, their family, etc).

In fact, Jesus rarely mentions heaven. His biggest concern was to bring heaven to earth not help us escape earth in order to get to heaven. How do we do that?

Loving God with all that we have and loving our neighbor and becoming the people we were created to be.

This is salvation in its fullest. It’s costly for sure but for those willing to pay the price it represents the one lifestyle that really does have the practical potential to transform the world. If we don’t get this then we don’t understand the meaning of salvation.