my need

i was struck, still am, today of my need for jesus. i was thinking about how jesus saves. "jesus saves". (it pains me a great deal that this truth, this most profound truth of salvation and hope, has been reduced to a bumper sticker, bs repetition that means nothing but is everything and holds hope for all men is no a damn cliche, satan works in effective ways.) but i keep looking about the things that are wrong in my life, or the things have have gone wrong, and see how jesus could have saved those things from going bad, i.e., my parents divorce, my own sin, how i kind of just fell apart this last semester, the war this country is fighting, just all this brokenness we're surrounded by is fixable. by jesus. he's like chicken noodle soup and sprite, but not, he isn't just a quick fix, he is true healing. i'm struck by how i need him. how we all do. he's what i want more than good friends, money, being a pastor, a wife someday, the new season of the office, more than anything. i'm not afraid to say it either. we need him more than correct theology, more than healthy relationships, good music, lovely art, lovers, friends, air, dirt, water, warmth, mom and dad, a needle in the arm, a bed, a car, a job, a church, food, insulin, human love. it's hard to now say how jesus saves us. i've kind of build him up, and now i'll stumble trying to explain what he in fact does, but he is good. i don't know about y'all, but i am not good, not on my own anyhow. his way, and the ways he teaches us to live, are right. but it's more than just right living, jesus didn't come to just teach us morality, but he offered up the most he absolutely could: himself. we need to understand who he is, fully G-d, totally good and totally loving. i think if i was closer to him, i'd sin less. no, i know this to be true.i know when i'm closer to G-d that i'm nicer, well, better, my desire to sin is smaller, i decrease and i want to see him increased thru me. it's great. it's a feeling i want to chase. i am more and more convents that what christians need most is christ, and to know him. we don't need our theology or head knowledge, we need jesus. we need to know him so we can become him and therefore, embody him to the world. this needs to be done somewhat carefully, because many doing this have made a grave error of abandoning His first love, the church. yes yes, we call know that she is a whore, and that she is corrupt and such and such things, none-the-less, hell, all-the-more, we need to be in the church and be him. i learned something cool at bible college, that the church is G-d's presents here on earth. brothers and sisters, we are the church. we canNOT run from ourselves any longer, it really does pain me to see people, some of the people i love more, saying they hate the church, when, in fact they/we are the church. i know things should be different, the america church bothers me a lot, and i know jesus wouldn't do it the way it's being done, but we gotta sick with it, we can't just go off on our own, mormans did that and they are lame (and kinda creepy, jav showed me a youtube video explaining some of their theology, those poor black people. http://youtube.com/watch?v=n5dscqcNOGM (this, by the way, is not my only information about their religion, interesting tho)). early christian leaders never intended to start a new religion, just fulfill Judaism, and i feel that is what we are to do with christianity today, make it right. not by our own doing, but thru christs. i want to become a pastor. i've been to bible college. and i will continue to go there, but not to please G-d so much as to please man, because what i need most to be the best pastor i can be isn't a degree from multnomah bible college stating that i've passed my classes and therefore have a masters in bible and theology, but rather that i need to become like christ, and i do this by going after him, yes theology and bible college can help, but it really comes down to being like him, because that's all i want to be. or at times, all i want to want to be, i'm not all there yet. jesus saves. any goodness in me is only thru him, because my heart is far from G-d and i am sinful and broken, but jesus heal and changes man into something good.



(no proof reading, sorry, i only write when it's very late indeed and i'm too tired to do anything but pound out my thoughts onto the keys, i hope it's not too bad, and even helpful)