Trick or Treat

I know, it's been a while. Having a baby will really change your life and schedule around! But here is hoping that this is the first of another consecutive string of bi-weekly posts! And, of course, now that it's November, this post doesn't really make sense, but I thought of it on Halloween and am finally getting around to putting words to it, so bear with me.

Trick or Treating never really made sense to me. Never once did I approach a house in a costume as a kid to get tricked. All I wanted was the candy, and thankfully, that's all I ever received. But maybe some of you grew up in strange neighborhoods and approached each house wondering whether you would be tricked or treated. And, if we're honest, I think that is how many people approach Christianity. Those who don't know Christ often assume it is either some great trick others have been fooled into or some treat they don't understand. Those who know Jesus, know it to be quite the treat, but this post is for those who think it is a great trick or a grand conspiracy.

As usual, I am going to take something from someone who is much smarter than me, and if you've ever read anything I've written, you'll guess that it is probably from C.S. Lewis. And congratulations, you've guessed right! Check out what he 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 was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the 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.” 

Jesus didn't have all kinds of great moral teachings on the side and then lie and trick people into his main point that he was and is the Son of God. It is all or nothing. Either it is all a trick, or all a treat. And that is the choice we must make. When Jesus himself was challenged by the religious leaders of the day on how he came to be so knowledgeable, he responded: "My teaching is not my own, it comes from the one who sent me. Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own" (John 7:16-17). And so Jesus challenges them to choose to obey God. If they do and it aligns with Jesus and his teachings, then he truly is who he says he is. If not, then we must look somewhere else.

I challenge you to do the same thing. Sit down and really think about how God would want you to live your life. Ask him, if you don't know. And then begin to live it in that way. When you do, you will draw so much closer to God and learn more and more about his great love and sacrifice for you. And when you do that, you will see from the example Jesus set that he truly is the Son of God, sent to the earth to save mankind. And by understanding that, you will turn away from the fear of being tricked and learn what it means to be offered the treat of salvation from the God of all.