Coffee Christianity

 

Today is National Coffee Day. I don't drink coffee, but it isn't for a lack of trying. For me to drink it, the ratio of cream and sugar would have to be far greater than the ratio of coffee. How something can smell so good, yet taste so vile...... well, air freshener smells really good too, but I doubt it tastes too great. I'm not trying it either. I most likely won't try coffee again either. My grandpa was probably right when he said if you have to learn to like something, it isn't worth eating/drinking it. Although he was talking about pizza when he said that, so maybe I shouldn't go quoting him.

  Coffee people crack me up. They have to have it to get going in the mornings, will pay exorbitant prices at places like Starbucks, and build their day around coffee.

  If I am honest, and I try to be, I wish I could drink coffee. I am not a morning person, and I could use the pick-me-up that coffee evidently provides.

 Just for fun, I posted this on Facebook this morning:
Question for coffee drinkers on National Coffee Day: Do you really like coffee if you have to cover up the taste with cream and sugar? Just asking........

  The coffee drinkers that drink it with cream and/or sugar came out of the woodwork. The post took on a life of its own. People pointed out that I most likely eat condiments on my burger, taco, and put sugar in my tea. I was amused. And I did do it in fun, but the responses were funny.

  I think you can be a true coffee drinker and like cream and sugar, but if that is the only way you got yourself drinking it, I still question if you really like coffee...... and if you drink decaffeinated, do you really like coffee?

  In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter if drinking cream and sugar in your coffee, or drinking decaff means you don't truly like coffee. However, the whole discussion got my mind to going as my mind does. And I got to thinking, what if we are the same way with our Christianity? With God's Word, with serving Jesus?

  Do we truly love Jesus if we don't just take Him and His Word as it is? If we try Jesus decaff, or Jesus lite?

  There are some grey areas in being a Christian, but I am afraid too many of us are taking what is black and white and shading it to make it grey. We are adding cream and sugar to make it easier to be a Christian, to make God's Word easier to swallow.

  We knock the people who claim they are serving God while living a gay lifestyle, but how many of us are cutting corners, twisting, or ignoring Scriptures or God's voice?

 I am not one who believes that once we become a Christian, that we are "in", and can never miss Heaven. I don't believe it is as easy to lose one's salvation as some preachers preached that I heard while I was growing up, but if we live our Christian life disobeying God as we add cream and sugar or try the decaff version of Jesus, I wouldn't want to assume I was heaven-bound.

  Loving Jesus is more than lip service and going to church every week. It is daily denying ourselves and obeying God.

  Adding cream and sugar to coffee does not necessarily mean you don't truly love coffee, but twisting Scriptures and going Jesus lite does mean we don't truly love Jesus.

 Loving Jesus means taking up our cross, denying ourselves daily, and taking God's Word seriously.

 God help me to truly love Jesus, not Jesus lite, or anything I might add to make serving Him easier.