Get ready to leave the Youniverse.
A few days ago, I jumped into Len Sweet and Frank Viola’s Jesus Manifesto with both feet. No, I didn’t get a free advanced copy like some of my other, much cooler friends. But no matter.
What happens when a society (or The Church) is forced to wrestle with Christ’s central question to us regarding Himself: “Who do you say that I am?”. It seems to me that, in a world where real lemonade is made with artificial flavors and furniture polish is made with real lemons, it’s time to put aside our artificial Jesus made in our image. It's time to get a glimpse of what it means to have Christ as the Center, the Circumference, and all the spaces in between.
When God expresses Himself…it is Christ. As Jesus Manifesto so aptly puts it: “Christ is God’s perfect pitch.” Fully and completely. It is not that Christ has taught us about God. It is that Christ himself is the teaching.
As a living epistle (a literal ‘Jesus Manifesto’), you and I need to be refocused, reformed and re-formed in our minds and hearts. What has Christ called us to? What has Christ called you to?
Religion? Politics? Evangelism? Ministry? Worship? Family? Studying and knowledge? Teaching? Moral values? Justification by recycling?!?
None of the above. Christ has called us to Himself. And Jesus bests all things. He clears the table of all others.
Jesus Manifesto is a passionate call to be seized by the great affection that is Christ. To be shaken from a consumer-driven church coma, and to be awakened to the strange, anti-checklist life in Jesus.
Are you ready? Recommendation: 5 out of 5 tacos. Best read while listening to the Chemical Brothers or the Fight Club DVD in the background. Be sure and check out the iPhone app (with nano-manifesto) to get a preview of the book.