I have been reading a new book; actually you know I am reading several. The title is, Blue Like Jazz. Don Miller was raised in a conservative Southern Baptist Church. He has a ministry to students at Reed College in Oregon. Reed at one time was considered the college where students were most likely to ignore God.
He writes the following,
For much of my life I had been defending Christianity because I thought to admit that we had done any wrong was to discredit the religious system as a whole, but it isn?t a religious system, it is people following Christ; and the important thing to do, the right thing to do, was to apologize for getting in the way of Jesus. (p.118)
Many of us grew up with the same thing in mind ? feeling we had to defend something. The reality is the best defense of our faith comes in the life authentically lived following Jesus. We grimace when we read the same from a figure from the early church. However, to read it form someone who holds the same background many of us do ought to resonate at some point. We may even discover there is a wealth of inspiration from those who have written on the subject of following Jesus throughout the centuries of the Christian faith. It may even convict us a bit.
Rather than get in Jesus? way, may we follow him