“If Jesus had a Facebook page… I think he probably wouldn’t weigh in much on the ‘issue of the day’. This is based on what I read in the Gospels. Just a guess.

Oh, it’s not that he didn’t care about the Big Issues. It’s that he’s the Great Physician, and injustices like the Roman occupation or even racism are just symptoms. The sickness goes deeper.

We want him to force medicine down the throats of our opponents.

He’s telling us to lie down… so he can give us a heart transplant.

But it takes humility to lie on the table. Even then, I suppose most of us would likely drift to pre-surgery sleep while yet mumbling.(‘Yeah, but it’s somebody else’s fault, you know… and what about those people… did you see… what they… did….’)

Mercifully, the Healer lovingly watches us close our eyes, and he goes to work” (Brant Hansen).

It’s interesting how God created us in His image, and ever since then we’ve been trying to return the favor. We try our best to cast Jesus in our image, whether it’s a very moralistic conservative who hates all the sins that we don’t struggle with or the laissez-faire anything goes liberal Jesus who just wants us to love everybody and who makes no demands on our lives.

But Jesus wants our hearts.

He doesn’t want to make us good. He doesn’t even want to make us better. He wants to make us brand new. It’s not that we need softer hearts — we need new hearts. We need a heart transplant.

I love the idea that yes, Jesus loved tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners. He met them where they were and loved them as they were. But He didn’t leave them that way. After they met Jesus, they weren’t tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners anymore. They were disciples who made disciples. They were followers of Jesus from then on.

The goal of the gospel isn’t to get gay people into straight marriages. It’s not to get addicts clean. It’s not to get them to vote a certain way. The goal of the gospel is to make brand new creations whose lives and conversations are a reflection of the power and grace of God to make the dead come alive. The goal of the gospel is to create a people who will stop at nothing for the rest of their lives to know Jesus and to make Him known, growing into His likeness more each day until they are just like Jesus.