Jesus Wants Friends Not Fans

I was chat­ting with De Wen (a stu­dent in our min­istry) yes­ter­day and he made a com­ment that real­ly res­onat­ed with me: “God wants friends, not fans.”

A lot of us set­tle for being fans. I often set­tle for being a fan. But there’s so much more avail­able — like Abra­ham, we can be friends with God (Isa­iah 41:8, James 2:23). As he did to the dis­ci­ples, Jesus yearns to say to us, “I no longer call you ser­vants but friends” (John 15:15).

But the temp­ta­tion to be a mere fan is strong. In Jim­my Tate’s mem­o­rable phrase, we sub­sti­tute praise for prayer. We allow the life of the church to dis­place our own spir­i­tu­al jour­ney and we live vic­ar­i­ous­ly through the pas­tor’s insights or the wor­ship lead­er’s zeal. Like a duti­ful fan, we turn out for the game (Sun­day morn­ing) and cheer at all the appro­pri­ate places. But we don’t call the coach after the game to con­grat­u­late him or shoot the breeze. We don’t invite him over for a vic­to­ry bbq. That’s the stuff a friend would do.

We’re just fans, so we go home and talk about how great the game was.

And we miss out on some­thing won­der­ful.

while she was out free down­load free mute wit­ness

lucky num­bers free