Jesus is difficult

There has to be a dying to self. If you want to follow Jesus Christ, there has to be a dying to self.

Check out Gal 2:20

One of the things that makes Jesus difficult is that He is going to go after our hearts.And the truth is when He does that, we’re not going to like what we see. When you can compare your heart to the other people around you, you might pass with flying colors.

When a holy God and completely other god lines up next to your heart and you see your heart for what it is, it’s very difficult to see. It’s ugly and it’s dark.So in that moment, when Jesus goes after the heart, we kind of try to do an exchange program. So Jesus will go after a section of our heart and we’ll go, “I don’t want to talk about that, so let me tell You what I’ll do. I’ll memorize Scripture, I’ll go through a Beth Moore Bible study, I will lead a home group, I will buy a christian book, I will stop listening to secular music, I will not watch curtain movies...” and on and on and on we go, and we will religiously barter with the God of the universe if He’ll leave our hearts alone.

The good news is you’re in the Bible Belt. There’s tons of religious activities to try to numb yourself with. That’s what makes it difficult. He’s relentless after the heart. While most of us want to think that this is about some kind of external action, Jesus ruthlessly and violently always goes after the heart. It’s what makes Him so very difficult.