Radically content (1)

This past week, I read an article written by a Christ-follower who wondered if anyone could ever say about him, “The day I spent with you was the closest thing I've ever experienced to walking with Jesus."

That question was a jolt to me. I couldn’t get away from the question. Could anybody say about me, “The day I spent with Rick was the closest thing I've ever experienced to walking with Jesus"? I think I would have to say “No.”

Would any honest person say that about you?

And then a week ago on Monday in our One Year Bible reading plan as we are reading through the New Testament this week, I was jolted again by Matthew 8:19-20:

A scribe came up and said to [Jesus], “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
Matthew 8:19-20 (ESV)

That’s radical. Jesus was radically content without much stuff. If I’m going to be like Jesus, my life can’t be defined by my stuff. He was saying, “If you are going to follow Me, there might be times when you won’t even have a bed. Are you OK with that?” If you spent a day with Jesus, you spent a day with Someone who might just be going to sleep that night without a bed!

Most of us haven’t really made it our goal to become the kind of person who could be mistaken for Jesus, have we?

But I John 2:6 says, "Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did."

How did Jesus live? We could say tons of things. But one thing we could say is that He was content. Radically content. We admire His contentment but we don’t really want to be THAT content – so content that it doesn’t even matter whether or not we have a bed!

That article I read concluded with these words: “You praise Him for loving you enough to suffer during His whole time on earth, but you're going to do everything within your power to make sure you enjoy your time down here. In short: You think He's a great Savior, but not a great role model. The American church has abandoned the most simple and obvious truth of what it means to follow Jesus: You actually follow His pattern of life.”

When people hang around you and your stuff, would they say “The day I spent with you was the closest thing I’ve ever experienced to walking with Jesus”? My guess is that you've never had someone say that to you, and you've never said it to anyone else. Why not?

One reason is that we’re stuffed with stuff. We want more stuff. We’re not content. So, for the next few days, I want you to think with me about what it means to be radically content