Hippie Jesus: A False Prophet

Throughout the Gospels and New Testament, we see many warnings of false prophets. Scripture says these false prophets will come in sheep's clothing but inwardly will be ravenous wolves (Matt. 7:5). What I understand from that statement is that these teachers will seem genuine. They will not only fool others, but they themselves are fooled! How scary to know that our flesh can so easily be persuaded by such convincing ideas.

What I did not realize is that the first greatly impacting false prophet of the 21st century would be jesus himself. I didn't capitalize jesus because I'm not talking about the Jesus of the bible. I'm talking about the jesus that society has conjured up in order to create love, acceptance, and peace. Nothing short of a hippie jesus. 

I would have loved to walk the roads with Jesus. I can't imagine literally, with my fleshly feet, following Him. But what I do know is what scripture tells me about Him and what the Holy Spirit intercedes with to help me understand who He is. 

It's taken me a while to gather the exact thoughts I wanted to portray in this post. But my favorite preacher, Matt Chandler, helped me sum it up in his sermon this past Easter. "Most of us would like to believe there are bible verses with asterisks by them, and if we turn to the back, there would be a picture of us, and under it, it would say, 'Never mind,' God would just say, 'Now that I see your life and what you're going through, never mind that command, I didn't mean that for you. Everybody else, but not you, bro. I get it now. Thanks for catching me on that.' .... That's blasphemous!"

We will never, as long as we live, escape our flesh. We will always be limited with our innate desire to sin. Whatever that sin may be. I thank God everyday for not only delivering me from sin and helping me fight my current sinful temptations, but for also protecting me from temptations that others have to face. What I mean by that, is no matter the sin- whether it seems small, difficult, unjust, offensive, harmful, harmless, concealed, or obvious- it's sin. And we have to wake up and choose everyday to not submit to our flesh and the sinful desires that comes with it. 

There's a movement happening today. A movement that says Jesus loved everyone, so Christians should, too. And I do agree that those who claim Christ's love should overflow that love to anyone and everyone. The point I believe we are missing is what the definition of love actually is. 

Stop reading this and come up with your definition of love. In a simple sentence, define the term before continuing this post. 

Okay. So was salvation any part of your definition? Or was your definition surrounded by the idea of what made you look good or what resulted in the most friends or maybe what created the most 'happiness'?

I am going to quote Matt Chandler again, well, because he's much smarter than me. "Our culture believes that if God is anything, He's a God of love who, like a fairy in the sky, simply sprinkles love dust on everyone... But that is so detached from reality... To say He has no wrath is to simultaneously say He has no love, for you can't divorce those two ideas." He follows by giving an excellent example and I will leave the link to this sermon below. ¹

The Jesus I serve is a Jesus who is righteous. A Jesus who flipped tables in the temple out of rage because people were sinning by creating sales on the holy ground. These people were doing what made sense economically. They weren't trying to be the absolute devil. They were literally doing what made sense; what was convenient. But it was sin. We are living in a gray world but that seems pretty black and white to me. 

So no, Jesus didn't just 'accept' sin and 'love' people with fairy dust. He said and did hard things in order to lead people to righteousness. Salvation and surrendering to the one Holy God was His objective for these sinners. 

Over and over Paul writes to various churches telling them to deny themselves and live in radical obedience to our Creator. Why? Because God does have wrath against those who rebel against Him. So yes, love people. Love the worst people and the best people until the cows come home. But have a righteous objective. Tell them about Jesus. Or else all that love is in vain and you're simply worshipping a hippie jesus. "And that jesus can't save."²

1. Matt Chandler: Which Jesus?

http://www.thevillagechurch.net/resources/sermons/series/which-jesus/
2. Scott Wakefield, FCC Greeneville