Whether we are headed to the most unreached people group of the world, or out the door to coach our kids’ baseball team, I think I really want to ask, “How do we see JESUS?”

Mark Labberton’s piece in Christianity Today calls us to consider the power of Christ and his message.

Why does the gospel look to so many like a bowl of lima beans?

For those who find the grace and truth of Jesus Christ convincing and compelling, such a question may seem absurd, if not blasphemous. But compared to the spiciness of the cultural concoctions that swirl around us in our globalized world, Jesus can seem like bland fare. Many have the impression that the gospel is small, smooth, and tasteless. They have a culturally conditioned disdain for any homogeneous answer to a heterogeneous world. And they have seen too little evidence to the contrary.

How could it be, some believers might balk, that “the hope of the world,” the One given “the name above every name,” could ever seem bland? Well, because often the church is bland. Pale. Gullible. Pasty. Just there. The fruit of this vine appears to be lima beans. If bland is the flavor of the church, then it is presumed to be the flavor of the One the church calls Lord.

 

Somehow, we don’t want to seem to take the claims of Christ too seriously.

I don’t want to excuse myself. I don’t want to over-stress myself, either. If I haven’t won thousands to Christ by the end of my life, have I failed?

My goal is to be consumed by the beauty of Christ and show his beauty to those around me. Jesus is not bland. While I may LOOK bland, my passion for Christ must be much more. That is what I want people to see, whether it’s a lost tribe in North Africa or my neighbor across the street.