We even take pride in our problems, because we know that trouble produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope. — Romans 5:3-4
Popular Christianity focuses on what Jesus can do for us. We confess our sins, we get heaven. We invest in church, we get rewarded in difficult times. In other words, Jesus is a genie who appears whenever we say or do the right things and want him to grant our wishes.
Paul, who was well acquainted with wounds, bruises, insults, slander, and prison cells, would scratch his beard and shake his head at that popular notion of Jesus appearing on cue. He knew what is forgotten or ignored by prosperity-focused “Christians”: Jesus isn’t a genie we call but a Master we follow. He leads us into a world where the poor, the grieving, the oppressed, the alienated, the lonely are blessed–not because they can get out of their pain, but because they find the Master in the midst of it. Perhaps the hurting find the Master there because the Master’s disciples have followed him there.
Jesus leads us into seeing a life deeper and richer than our wants and desires. In giving we receive. In loving we discover life. In enduring we find character. In denying ourselves we find hope.
Being a Christian is following Jesus, wherever he leads. It’s becoming part of a redeemed community that reflects the Father’s kingdom, not a group of people in it for what they can get out of it. Honestly, it’s a struggle for me to do this, because Genie-Jesuses are so appealing. But if it’s not a struggle, it’s not discipleship.