Jesus is my Homeboy. I’ve heard this phrase for half my life. It insinuates that Jesus is your best friend, which fits in with the theme of today’s blog. In Evangelical Christianity, there is the thought that you must have a “personal relationship” with Jesus to be a proper Christian.
Relationship Goals
The Evangelical Christian life aims to establish a personal relationship with Jesus. This means we must relate to Jesus as if he were our best friend, mentor, parent, Savior, and everything else.
The true story of the phrase Jesus is My Homeboy can be found in the link. It’s a cool story. However, Evangelicalism equates the personal relationship angle as a mandatory part of Christianity. It isn’t enough to believe in Jesus as the Messiah. You must enter into a friendship with him.
The Myth of Personal Relationship
Preston Sprinkle provides an excellent dive into the phrase. He states that the personal relationship or “inviting Jesus into your heart” is not found in the Bible.
In truth, Jesus does discuss relationships and how we are to treat others. To be technical, how we react to others by following Jesus’ example might be the best interpretation of having a personal relationship with Jesus.
The Evangelical bent is to invite Jesus to live in our hearts. While they may take it literally, much like the Catholics take transubstantiation as the bread literally becoming Jesus’ body and the wine becoming His blood, it is a figurative way of saying I am following Jesus.
The Truth of Personal Relationship
Honestly, if you want a personal relationship with Jesus, you must do as he said: “Come follow Me, and I will send you to fish for people.” Matthew :19 NIV
Unlike what I wrote before of Evangelicals treating Christianity as if it were an MLM scheme, actually following Jesus means living the Words in Red.
Living the Words in Red means loving our neighbors—all of them. It means feeding the hungry and clothing and housing the poor—even if they aren’t working as hard as we think they should. We should not take away the rights of others because they act differently than we do.
It requires understanding that we live in a nation made of many people from many cultures and beliefs. We should not try to make everyone conform to our beliefs. We are not now and never have been a Christian Nation.
I Have Decided to Follow Jesus
The words to the song, I Have Decided to Follow Jesus, say there is no turning back once you start. We, as Americans and as Christians, have not only turned back, we have gone miles in the opposite direction of Jesus.
If we genuinely want to see Heaven, we must look at the Words in Red and give them priority over Paul’s or any other writer’s words. Paul was a man who thought like a man and tried to interpret Jesus’ words based on his faith.
Paul and the other writers in the Bible have many beneficial words, much like the words of other prophets in other religions. However, in the Christian faith, more emphasis has been put on the words of Paul than those of Jesus.
Jesus didn’t plan on starting a religion. He intended to upend religion and wanted us to love everyone as God does. He was the example of God’s love. If He were here today, He would not recognize the faith that the people who claim to follow Him teach. So, let’s make Jesus our Homeboy again and follow His example.
What are your thoughts?
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