Jesus and the Cross: The Only Way to "Winning"

In a world where a celebrity actor, obviously mired in addiction and the grandiosity it creates, says he's "winning" and finds people gullible enough to believe him, following Jesus is a radical way of life.

Following Jesus entails repentance, humility, honest self-evaluation, and sacrifice.

It also entails acknowledging the reality that we can't master sin, death, or our impulses toward self-destruction on our own.

We need Jesus Christ.

We need the way of the cross, which means letting Christ crucify our old sinful, death-filled ways so that He can replace them with the life He gives to all who repent and believe in Him.

That's the only way to resurrection and hope in this life. To "win" at life, we must first "lose" our delusions and denial.

Jesus puts it this way: "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it" (Luke 9:23-24).

Julie Ackerman Link has some great thoughts on this topic, well worth taking the few minutes required to read it and the passage of Scripture on which it's based.

Here is the link to Link's piece.

Here's a great song by one of my favorite artists and satirists, Steve Taylor. It's called Jesus is for Losers. I aspire to be a "loser" who daily submits to the gracious reconstruction of my whole being Jesus offers, losing the death, the sin, and the futility that sticks to a life in which we pretend to be number one and in control. Get a clue, Charlie; get a life; grab hold of Christ!



Here are the lyrics:
If I was driven
Driven ahead by some noble ideal
Who took the wheel?

If I was given
Given a glimpse of some glorious road
When was it sold?

So caught up in the chase
I keep forgetting my place

Just as I am
I am stiff-necked and proud
Jesus is for losers
Why do I still play to the crowd?

Just as I am
Pass the compass, please
Jesus is for losers
I'm off about a hundred degrees

If I was groping
Groping around for some ladder to fame
I am ashamed

If I was hoping
Hoping respect would make a sturdy footstool
I am a fool

Bone-weary every climb
Blindsided every time

Just as I am
I am needy and dry
Jesus is for losers
The self-made need not apply

Just as I am
In a desert crawl
Lord, I'm so thirsty
Take me to the waterfall

And if you're certain
Certain your life is some cosmic mistake
Why do you shake?

And if you're certain
Certain that faith is some know-nothing mask
Why do you still ask?

They don't grade here on the curve
We both know what we deserve

Just as you are
Just a wretch like me
Jesus is for losers
Grace from the blood of a tree

Just as we are
At a total loss
Jesus is for losers
Broken at the foot of the cross

Just as I am
Pass the compass, please
Jesus is for losers
I'm off about a hundred degrees

Just as I am
In a desert crawl
Lord, I'm so thirsty
Take me to the waterfall

Why is it that with a proven track record of physically abusing women with whom he has relationships...

that Charlie Sheen has not been suspended from his job on a CBS sitcom? And why hasn't he been required both to get help and to face whatever unconscionably-delayed judicial charges may be pending from his December 25 altercation with his wife?

Hanes, the undewear people, have already dropped Sheen for fear that his inveterate abuse of women is bad for their company's image. I realize that Sheen stars in "Two and a Half Men," which is a top-rated show on CBS. It's a cash cow.

But what messages is the airer of Sheen's show sending to women when they allow a serial abuser to be a playboy cad on the screen? What's more important to CBS's bottom line: alignment with the perpetrators of sexual violence or with the hundreds of thousands of women who are subjected violence each year? Do they want an abuser to be seen as an attractive date or life partner and for younger women to think that it's OK to accept abuse as the price of a relationship? By retaining Sheen at this point, CBS is siding with abusers. Not good.

I don't expect that any boycott would be effective in responding to CBS' insensitivity in this matter. But you would hope that "the Tiffany network" could act with a little more class. I guess not.

CBS, all eyes are on you. What are you going to do?