I have a confession to make:  I quit pressing “like” to posts on facebook that are copy and paste type links concerning Christ. An example  of one of these is as follows: ” likes Let’s see how many true Christians are on FB! Press Like if Jesus is your Savior!!”  Another says something along the lines of “97% won’t press like and only 3% will who love Jesus”.  What does it mean that we push a button that says we “like”? Does it show support on a surface level or truly what we feel? The only thing I know is it stirs within me a feeling I cannot 100 % explain but that feeling feels a lot like anger at times.

I will be honest I struggle with this feeling and what  seems like rebellion against this type of post.I mean accepting Jesus Christ as your savior is a good thing , right? So why do I push against social networking Christ culture? I had to know so time and space was made for the pursuit of why I feel what I feel. So down this faintly lit trail I went but I could not find or define a real reason why I felt this way. So over and over I searched out this elusive “why”. I thought even “Maybe I was wrong to feel this way.”  The bible tells us if we deny Him He will deny us right? What if by not pushing the “like ” button I was denying Christ? Still I was not able to quite buy into that. Slowly it came into focus and then there it was the REASON, the reason why this is this way for me.

I t was and is still very simple : If I am convicted of something that I believe in and I am passionate about it I need use my own “voice”to declare it. It is just too easy to press a button and jump on the next crazy train to “like” town without paying the price for the ride now isn’t it? To me it feels and smells like branding as well: Just press the “like” icon and get some buzz going and brand this Jesus thing. But after the buzz stops and smoke settles we know the name but not what “it” is . No different than most products that have been shoved down our throats and through our media addled brains. It was time for me to clear the haze from the grey matter and unclutter my heart.

I am not saying it is wrong to “like” this type link or post. I mean I click other links and posts but with this it is , well different. So if it for a good thing and for me and others a deeply passionate belief, then why am I being a little hard headed? For me it is simply to convenient  to just “click it” when my beliefs are a little deeper than a stroke of a computer key or mouse.

So what do I believe? I believe Jesus Christ is the son of the living God. I believe he died for the sins of ALL the world. He came for not the 3% but 3% plus 97%. You do the math.I confess my part in the problem: I need forgiveness and the washing away of sins because I have, will and do sin. Judgement was given to Him because God is needs Christ’s experience as human to be fair, just and merciful. These are things I am not. I believe these things through faith not through any greatness of my own. Trust me I would have knocked Eve out of the way and ate the fruit of the tree of good and evil first!

The good news is free and though a free gift is just that free, the gift of salvation is more.  Grace in the form of Jesus Christ represents love and sacrifice to the highest degree. I get to be a part of this because He  is who He is  not because I am who I am. I am part of the problem He is the solution. He is love and it encompasses the whole of humankind: yesterday , today and tomorrow, past, present and future. No matter how you say it that is huge!

I don’t push the “like” button because it really cannot express the way I feel and maybe it is just me but it seems to make less of what what Christ is. I don’t judge those who do push to “like ” button but I have to answer for me and to me  it limits what the Christian faith should be. As Wayne Cox said in the Clay Pot Chronuilces : “We must make a shift from a gospel limited to, “if you died tonight …” and encompass a more holistic, “if you live tomorrow” approach to faith.” It is about eternity but it is also so about each and everyones  journey. That is why I love God in the form of Jesus Christ.