God on the Cover

I remember people give me a wise advice, do not judge book by its cover. This is true, I have several occasions of reading good book with an ugly cover or unattractive title, yet, I found the good to be fascinatingly good, content-wise. And that is why, there is a reward to what we call, the best book with the worst title. One of the famous one was written by Herman Melville, Moby Dick, what a title! This wise saying apparently do not apply for judging a book only, I believe (Julian Baggini wrote a book entitled Should you judge this book by its cover, which cover-wise is not nice at all). This phenomena of only looking on the cover happened in our daily life as a Christian. We love to be a Christian that put God on the cover. From outset, we seemingly perceived by others as worshipper, we sing out loud but deep inside we are empty. Our heart is not full of the Word of God but the word of hate, complaint and sorrow. 

Michael Spencer wrote an interesting book entitled, Mere Chrurchianity. The title of the book echo the famous work from C.S (Mere Christianity) Lewis but here, Spencer combine Christianity with the word church. This hybrid move show how actually church and Christian are inseparable. Yes, Of course, as a Christian, we are the church! He pointed out many Christian make a book that put Jesus in the cover but not in the book, meaning, Jesus that the book deliver is not the real Jesus but a "nice Jesus", Jesus that is solely made just to adjust the expectation of the people. Severity of God/Wrath of God had been erased from every discussion or every attempt to describe Jesus (the aversion of Jesus). From here we can say also think, if Jesus is only in the cover not in the book, then Jesus is being made just to attract people, this is like some kind of marketing strategy so that so, people are attracted to buy the book (here also, I have an issue to put Jesus's face/image in the book cover) but at the end of the day, the reader never find the real Jesus of the Bible nor the Gospel. 

Sad enough, God on the Cover this is our spiritual condition, we fake our spirituality so that people can praise us, people can look us up, and even set us apart as the spiritual example in their life, honestly, only Jesus deserve that honor, we are all only pilgrim in progress, in every step of the way in our spiritual journey. Substance is what we need today. What the church need today. Without cover substance can stand by its own but without substance cover cannot stand by its own. Cover is only of added value, whereby substance is what we call the overall values. 1 Corinthians 15:3 says it well, gospel is of the most important. If people have exchange this, and set the cover as the most important thing in life, Matt Chandler in Explicit Gospel (2012) says, 

"When that happens, what you have are people who have been conformed to a pattern of religious behavior but not transformed by the Holy Spirt of God. This explains why we see a lot of people who know objective spiritual truths but in the end have failed to apply them in such a way that their lives demonstrate real change. They are hearing, but they are not hearing."

What should we do then? We are not stop here, or settling the journey only in the path of believing God but we need to go further to becoming like God, to reflect Christ in every step of the way, especially by reflecting and proclaiming His tremendous work of salvation again and again, everyday and not only occasionaly, in Good Friday. 

Honestly, we often take for granted this basic spirituality, that is to say to look upon Christ on the cross and ask, why He need to be nailed? The answer is clear, because of our depravity. Only by knowing the bitterness of Cross we can know the sweetness of Christ's death on the cross. And this knowledge of the cross is the knowledge that can move us, kindle us to live a life that worthy of living, that is to say, to glorify Him. The problem of God on the cover, began when we are not appreciating and delighting continuously on His work of salvation. As the result, we forget that He is the savior not us (play-God). Contarary to popular view, on the cross, Christ did not pay the price so that we can have a free ticket to heaven smoothly. Rather, Christ died so that we are focus not on heaven but to Him, to which heaven will be no meaning without Him.

The last things that we can start to practice to day is to be humble ourselves, know that we are nothing without Him and ask God to transform us as Augustine says, "God gives where He find empty hands." Humility is the thing that can unite us with God. For Augustine, humility is not for the sake of social benefit, that's only secondary. The primarily thing of humility is related to our relationship with God. Humility is not about not about having not a pleasure after doing a generous action (I agree with Immanuel Kant, it is quite impossible: T.2.1.7.8). And of course, having a pleasure is not necessarily a prideful act or against the posture of humility. Humility is about the knowledge of our being, as sinner that need the help of God in which without Him, we acknowledge that we are completely nothing. Moreover, humility is an awareness that God should be put in the "center" not in the "cover." He is the main actor not us. And we believe, when God is in the center, everything will fall into its natural order. Thus, Christ should occupy the center in our life, our theology our family,  our ministry, everything (all inclusive aspects said Llyd-Jones)! Apostle Paul boldly declare in Ephesians 1:10 that all things belong to Christ, "both which are in heaven, and which are in heaven; even in Him."