Beyond Plastic Christianity Intro

Over two thousand years ago in a remote section of the Roman Empire, one man’s revolutionary philosophy and teachings sparked a radical movement that collided with society’s traditional beliefs, customs, and way of life.  Jesus Christ Himself broke the mold of religiosity in which people vainly strive to be “good enough” to be called Christian.  He unfolded a new and simple plan that would destroy ideologies and models of power imposed on humanity throughout the ages.  Jesus lived a life that ignored limitations and boundaries and confronted society’s perspective on clean and unclean, male and female, and even Jew and Gentile.  He loved ALL people without prejudice and without limit.  Jesus was far beyond ordinary!

He was one single Man yet He chose to live differently from all the rest and to love each person uniquely, unashamed and unafraid to fulfill God’s master plan of redemption.  He was ridiculed, mocked, beaten, wrongfully condemned, and even crucified for His convictions.  For our sakes, He gave up His own sinless life to suffer the shame and agony of the vilest criminal’s execution. Regardless of the cost, He remained adamant even on the Cross that there was a better way to live and to love: to meet each and every person at his/her own individual and unique need.  His way was and still is GRACE. 

Then came the resurrection and it shattered the idea that Christians can be mass produced on an assembly line according to a particular formula or set of pre-packaged rules. He won the victory over death and salvation became a one on one, heart to heart relationship with Christ.  Even today, the power of Jesus’ message conveys the truth that a lasting commitment of our hearts and minds begins at the foundation of all that we believe.  We can’t earn salvation or get it any other way than individually surrendering our own lives His will as we allow Him to remake us.  When we confess Jesus Christ as Lord of our lives, we become one in Him and Him alone—created by Him and designed by Him for a single unique purpose unlike any other person in the universe. He had so much more than ordinary in mind.

Jesus, a simple carpenter from Nazareth, broke every mold.  He toppled the walls of hatred, hypocrisy, and religious traditionalism.  He took faith and salvation off the assembly line, putting His own life on that line in fact!  No more cheap imitations or clones.  His love and His plan for me is unique as it is for you and He wants each one of us to live beyond “good enough”—beyond ordinary.   He gave us extraordinary grace so that we could be extraordinary works of art, created to live and to love through His extraordinary grace.

Have you every recognized that the majority of us live beyond our means—beyond our finances, beyond our physical talents and abilities, and even beyond the time we have with our “fast food, drive through” mentality?  In all of those things, we will risk anything to move beyond the norm but when it comes to our faith, we won't dare to move beyond what we know or can see.  We choose to be limited by formulas and conviction.  Our faith and testimony becomes a cheap plastic imitation of what someone thinks we all should.

As you turn the pages of this book, I challenge you to make a commitment to live beyond average—beyond the stagnant norm.  You can be more than a generic mundane ho-hum Christian!  Dive in headfirst in pursuit of becoming who you are supposed to be in Christ. Surrender all your preconceived ideas and all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  Break the mold of your own plastic Christianity and become an extraordinary living, breathing, and loving testimony of His extraordinary grace!

 

God saved you by His grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.

- Ephesians 2:8-10 NLT -