Guest Post: Our Love Is Too Safe by @Moe_NYC

This week I am proud to share this space with an author that I really respect. I think you will enjoy what he has to share. Moe (@Moe_NYC) is the author of betachristian.net.

He is a a native New Yorker who loves God, family, others (in that order). My regular readers might find it ironic that I am introducing you to a New Yorker as we firmly disagree on baseball and football teams, but he has his redeeming qualities. He is a pretty outgoing person who loves to be competitive and hungry for the things he is passionate about which include: teaching, tutoring and leading people. He believes in books (both physical and digital), organization (love GTD) and growing people (everyone has potential). If you spend anytime following him on twitter or reading his blog, you will quickly pickup on the fact that he loves coffee, writing, reading, photography and really cool software (not necessarily in that order but pretty close). I will shut up now.

Here is Moe:

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Our Love Is Too Safe


In the New Testament we read how Jesus came to earth and how bold He lived His life. He spoke against the religious elite, He "worked" on the Sabbath, He invited himself to people's houses, He was the "drunk and the glutton", loved to have his feet cleaned in hooker tears and chased out the temple merchants, turned their tables and borrowed Indiana Jones's whip.

As we move over to the Epistles, and eventually to Revelation, we see more boldness, more valor and more desire to spread this Gospel with fervor. It rarely feels like safe Christianity.

What made Jesus so dangerous and so threatening was that He was intentional in desiring to be in people's lives. He wasn't satisfied with a handshake and a "Shalom". He wanted so much more. He desired a place in the heart of people. He made the long trip through Samaria, not around it. He wasn't satisfied with just knowing there were Samaritans confused and fighting for the rights to a well. He desired to be part of their lives.

Today, we confuse love with a romantic feeling of butterflies and pretty words. Real love is having the ability to be dangerous and bold and seek those who need to be found. Not only those who agree with us, who we like, who look and dress like us. The love I see in my Bible is a love that goes against anything cute and pretty, but seeks to find the ugly and dangerous. True love is dangerous and uncomfortable.

God didn't come to create a society of Christians that lived safe, loved safe and spent more time making themselves comfortable rather than dangerous. We have made the greatest news ever heard, the greatest event in history about us, rather than about Him. God didn't come to earth so that we have all of our little itches scratched.

We have become a people that don’t intrude, that never demand, never judges, never meddles. We have become a people who keep their distance and doesn’t crowd. Jesus's theology was one of involvement, not one of avoidance.

As the Christian church, we’re supposed to be one body, and we should be standing together seeking to love dangerously and seek that which was lost. We need to listen to what Jesus is saying and to follow his teaching and principles. Jesus wasn’t afraid to speak out for others, and we shouldn’t be either. Let's move past the books we read, the conferences we attend and the romantic gospel we preach, and move towards a dangerous mob of people who are bold in doing what God demands of us.

Let's move out of this safe love and make it dangerous. Let's be more intentional in seeking friendships with those who people do not accept today. I believe that these dangerous friendships reveal true love and become much stronger than doctrine, rules, and tradition.

Let's show this world that we can bear fruit, not fungus or empty acorns.
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Let me also recommend you swing by Moe's blog and read his three part testimony.

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