a fixed target: finding the center

Target the store has an ad catchphrase they have been using for a while now, "Life's a Moving Target." I grant you that Target's commercials are not as annoying as some and I concede that Target is a very clean and organized store versus its competitors, however, that doesn't make me like its slogan. It's my "Christian self" that takes the most disliking to the phrase. I do that a lot with media and entertainment, which makes it a nightmare for girlfriends who want to go see silly, promiscuous, "romantic comedy" chick-flicks. I always notice the unlikelihood, superficiality, and flawed mindsets of the characters in the film. Do I sound like a fun movie companion or what? This is not to say I dismiss every romantic comedy ever made; I like "Sleepless in Seattle", I find "When Harry Met Sally" to be a classic, I think "Win A Date With Tad Hamilton" is an adorable film. I however loathe "Knocked Up", "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" and "There's Something About Mary" which I have never been able to sit through all the way. Nothing is more irksome to me than wasting $10 bucks and two hours of my life on cinematic garbage.

Who moved the bullseye?

Anyway back to my issue with the slogan, "Life's A Moving Target." It's the impermanence the phrase suggests that bothers me the most. It suggests that life is always just out of reach, the goal of it ever changing and moving. I hate that idea; it sounds exhausting to me. Shopping may be a moving target, "Today I need toilet paper tomorrow a frying pan" but life's not. The center of our life shouldn't shift depending on what material goods we need to buy though that certainly sounds like something stores and advertisers would want us to believe.

Here is another slogan, "Our mission is to courageously lead people toward full devotion to Jesus Christ." This could totally be me being facetious but I don't like that slogan very much either. For now I will leave alone the possible self-aggrandizing involved with the words "Our" and "courageously." The word toward is what really sticks out most in my mind; Toward: "moving in the direction of (but not necessarily arriving at); in relation to (someone or something); for the purpose of attaining (an aim); located close to." (exact definition found on Wiktionary) 

I don't want to be in the vicinity of Jesus - I want to be with Jesus. I don't want to wander close to Him only to find in the end I didn't know Him. Becoming devoted to Him is not my aim, I am devoted to Him (all glory be to God!). The question now is "What do I do with my already existing devotion to Him?" or to phrase it a different way, "What does my existing devotion to Jesus look like lived?" Leading others perpetually towards devotion to Christ is not my aim either. I am just not sure you should want to lead someone toward being devoted to Jesus Christ; either they are going to be devoted or they aren't. This is a frighting sobering reality. The biggest question every man and woman will face is: Do I accept Jesus Christ literally as my Lord and Savior? It is a question every human being needs to wrestle with and resolve upon a concluding answer. Faith and its opposite unbelief are the two things all actions spring from. Transformation comes not so much out of what we do but what we believe. If you were an abolitionist who was unsure that slavery was really wrong, your resolve to see slavery's end, wouldn't be very strong. If you aren't actively/currently/already devoted to Christ than your resolve in living for Christ won't be very firm (too well do I personally know this is true!). How can you live out the principles of someone you don't currently trust? How can you hope in promises you don't really think are true?

Encouraging adherence to the moral, practical teachings of Christ is pointless unless the more difficult life-altering, supernatural Spiritual teachings are taught as well. He talks about needing not just a new way of behaving but a completely new birth / new being. He is a radical in speech and deed. NO ONE is like Jesus Christ in identity, claim, teaching and existence. Like C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

When someone resolves something they resolve it; when you make your mind up, you make your mind up. I can't put a chicken in the oven and when the timer dings expect beef wellington to come out just as I can't plant carrots seeds and expect tomatoes to grow. The joy of making a decision is that now a conclusion has been reached; even if it is a hard choice at least there is peace knowing a choice has been made. Lukewarm, fence sitting really isn't an option when it comes to being a follower of Christ, again this is a sobering, humbling thing. If you leave open the option to change your mind, abstain from deciding until you have more evidence or believe only up to certain limits than you aren't resolved, your roots aren't fixed, your confidence is shaky. How are you going to live and die for something you don't believe in? The following is an example that came to mind. When you want to breakup with someone you shouldn't work towards breaking up with them, you should breakup with them.

Resolution to the question of "Who is Christ and what does that mean to me?" needs to come and it can't come unless The Gospel is heard and The Gospel can't be heard unless it is preached thus I admire and approve of the heart seeking out the non-devoted, unbelieving; that is a good and loving thing to want, necessary and vital are evangelism and missionary work. I guess what I am saying is I want the center target of Jesus Christ to be fixed, clear and ultimately obtained by those who are His children. I want the heart quickened to faith in Jesus Christ to be a confident heart in Jesus Christ; confident not because they have paid their $19.99 for spiritual assessment or because they have attended the most recent teaching series but because they know that they know Jesus Christ, ya know?

May the words of Peter be our own:

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls." 1 Peter 1:3-9