Jesus My Possession

Of course we never come right out and say that Jesus is my possession, but if we're honest with ourselves, we often think it. How do I come to this conclusion? Well, I think it is a mixture of careless language, which isn't really all that surprising or disturbing, but when coupled with selfish consumeristic living, it is a devilish combination.

I'll explain. We use phrases like, "my Jesus," "Jesus is mine," "my God." Now nothing is fundamentally wrong with personalizing the Divine-human connection in relation to yourself. However, it is wrong in the next breath to continue in the same vein to speak about "my salvation," "my blessings," "my spiritual gifts," my...my...my. This is what is starting to catch wind of what I'm pointing at. Even I think "my Jesus" is on the cusp of theological naughtiness. It can be construed of having a tone of acting as if one has ownership of the Divine. This is "my Jesus." Get your own Jesus teddy bear, because you can't have mine. This is "my Jesus" that I am possessive of that I hug and squeeze as mine.

Well, perhaps I have made light of this language and have taken it to an absurd extreme. But still, I think there is some truth in what I'm saying. Jesus is mine, and salvation is mine. Christianity gives me stuff, and that fits into my paradigm of a consumeristic American society. I get heaven and I get Jesus out of the deal. This leaves the flip side of the coin by the wayside. What does Jesus get from this one way business transaction. Where is the two way street? Is Jesus really satisfied being your trinket on your collectibles shelf?

If we act like Jesus is a mine, and we barrel aimlessly down a one-way Christian street that only consists of me, myself, and I, I will get bulldozed by the truth sooner or later. Once the demands of Jesus enter the discussion in a powerful way then Jesus gets accused of legalism. Oh wait, that's not how the story goes. Jesus isn't accused of legalism, we just never let Him speak openly on anything of real depth and self-sacrifice. The American church silences His voice and reinterprets the text instead, muffling his voice.

The question boils down coherently to the driving question underlying this whole issue, "Jesus is mine, but am I His?" Jesus is my Savior, but am I His servant? Once again, "Jesus is mine, but am I His?" If we border thinking that Jesus is my possession, do we ever get to the point where we ask, "am I His possession?"