chocolate cake myth - summarized

My friend Jay and his wife Michelle have a blog and they often share some really cool insights with the rest of us. Recently I stumbled across one of his blogs that touched on the 'chocolate cake myth' and in addition to linking to his post, I'm going to do my own summary here:

The chocolate cake myth tells us that you can take a vanilla cake and by simply adding some chocolate shavings to the cake, you've transformed that vanilla cake into a chocolate cake. Voila! How extraordinary. How fake.

We as Christians do the same with our lives. We take our lives, with our jobs and our commitments, our families and our dreams, we throw a little Jesus on there (Sunday worship, some Bible reading) and we say we're different.

How different are we really?

Let's take an inventory of my life:

• I went to college and got a diploma
• I have a full-time job
• I volunteer at a soup kitchen
• I go to church
• I even help at the church
• I like to craft, sometimes make money doing it
• I rent an apartment
• I play on the computer
• I make lots of friends
• I get to go to lots of weddings
• I have a home filled with 'stuff'

What have I done any different than others? I'm not saying I need to go and be Mother Teresa, but I need to do something.

The world is not going to take me seriously, until I take my relationship with God seriously. Live a life that's different than others. Stand out, stand up and be counted.

Romans 12:2 - "And be not conformed to this world: but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

1 John 2:15 - "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him."

James 1:27 - "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

Isaiah 1:17: - "learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow."

Psalm 82:3 - "Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy."


For these reasons I'm beginning to seriously question myself, my current life, my job, pretty much everything that defines who I am.

In that same post, Jay writes about our money and how bleak things will look at the end of our lives when we realize we gave 10% to God and kept 90% for ourselves. That is, if we even do that much. I was so struck by this today when I was at the mall with my good friend Sarah and every store I walked by and every sale sign and every bulging shopping bag, begged the question: Do I really need this? I want to spend so much on myself, but why? What's the purpose? I was so bothered that I walked out empty-handed.