Without Jesus We Stink

We need to talk. I think we all do. There is an actual reason we need Jesus. Sometimes I sense that many of us are just caught up in the Church culture and don't understand the reality of our situation or our need for Jesus. Many of us enjoy the music and the friendships we have developed. We even feel the depth of the sound bites from the sermons we use as status updates. It feels great to belong to something bigger than ourselves. And if that is all there is to it I hope and pray that the entire Church culture scene would be flipped over and the promoters of it thrown out on their ear.

We need Jesus, not culture. We need Jesus because without him we smell like decaying flesh. Have you ever smelled decaying flesh? If you have you know it is a smell you never forget, it's that powerful. This is what we are like without the life giving blood of Jesus:

Being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful. (Romans 1:29-31)

That's us in the natural, when the facade is torn down and our heart revealed. That is what we are like without the resurrection power of Jesus coursing through our veins. This is why we need Jesus and why Church culture can't do a thing for us. Nothing but the blood of Jesus can change our natural make-up. The change Jesus brings to us is like turning straw into gold, or more like a decaying carcass into a living, breathing person.

Without Jesus we stink and all the self help, image improving books and seminars will not help us. It is like dressing up a dead body. It may have clothes but it is still without life. It is like spraying perfume on a corpse. It may help the stink for a minute but the smell of death is far too powerful. Culture tries to conform, to cover up what we are but Jesus offers total transformation, so what was dead is made alive. We need Jesus not culture.