Over the weekend - I managed to buy a copy of the film "Fireproof" - and I watched it.  To start with, I wanted to be fairly open-minded as to what it was all about, but within about 15 minutes - all I could think about was angel's river-dancing on the duvet - doing the happy-clappy dance, and for those of you who read my stuff regularly - know exactly what I feel about that.  In short, it was all the fluffy stuff you would expect from a Christian movie - which is not why I brought the movie.  I wanted to know what all this hype was about, and why it was awarded so many awards after it was released, because at first glance - there was nothing in it that titillated my goose bump.  It was just a typical Christian movie, with everything expected in a Christian movie.  And quite honestly (at first glance) it was a movie that I would not pick up and watch again - because it was too "fluffy" for my liking.  I'd rather watch a film like "Pay It Forward" or something of that nature that makes you think, whereby something else is thrust upon you without having to think it.  In short.  Just follow the 40-step plan - and all your troubles will go away.  So when I saw that part in the movie - I thought to myself, oh yeah?  What planet does he think he's living on?  And why did I think that?  Because in the relationships I know of where marriages have been slammed up the wall - it don't happen there... So it took 24 hours to sink into me what it was all about.

Yesterday, I was talking to my sister Lesley - and I touched on the subject of the movie.  For some unknown reason - my brain short-circuited and got right down to what that movie was all about.  It didn't matter what that man tried to do to attract back his wife, nothing was working.  And I have to admit, every-time nothing worked, he went outside and bashed hell out of the refuse bin in pure frustration and temper - because the flowers didn't work, the candle-lit dinner didn't work, neither did being nice work.  And the more he did stuff - the harder it got, which is something I can relate to.  To that end, I branch into this message "Who Is This Jesus You Talk About."

Whenever I heard sermons in church - they always sent my brain into a cramp, because the Jesus they portrayed - was not the Jesus that I was experiencing.  In short (as above), it was angel's river-dancing on the duvet - doing the happy-clappy dance, and just sign on the dotted line and commit yourself to Christ, and all your troubles will go away. So when a friend of mine did that, she said, "I never experienced anything like this before I became a Christian.  Now all hell's broke loose!"  And, "the man in-front of me who I married all those years ago is not the man in-front of me right now!"  And I seriously thought to myself, how do I get myself out of this one - because it was there in full view for all to see, and all the others they talked to didn't want to know a thing about it, and just brushed it aside as if it wasn't happening.  In other words, they didn't want to get involved.  They even talked about getting a divorce - because it got so bad that they even stopped communicating with each other.  Oh boy, did I feel like a verbal punch bag by the end of it - because I was getting it from both ends, and on more than one occasion had a beam me up Scottie moment - as it was not the God of the bible that was being portrayed in church - that all your troubles will go away once people sign up.  In fact - it was totally the opposite.  They'd only just begun.  So I go back to the same question again.  Who is this Jesus you talk about...when everything around you is going belly up?  So let me now go right up to my neck in it - whereby one thing is said in a sermon or two, whereby another is happening in real life in people's lives, and people make up their own version of Jesus - that doesn't quite match up to the Jesus that some people read about in the bible, and it is not as simple as a 40-day plan. In fact, once people dive into it, its a life-long commitment - whereby not everything is going to go your way.  Next paragraph.

It can be tough but rewarding at the same time.  It can be challenging whereby you feel like your back is against the wall, but conquering at the same time once you've broken through it.  And I will always maintain that faith doesn't grow in a land of plenty, because if that were the case - we'd need no faith at all.  In fact, when you feel as if you've been bashed from pillar to post - that's when your faith begins to grow, because there's an opposition against everything you believe in that forces it to grow.  In short, it forces people to act out the very thing they believe in, that it is not always angel's river-dancing on the duvet, and that it is something that people have to deal with whether they like it or not.  So that 40-day plan - that when people really think about it - extends longer than a 40-day plan because they make a commitment that nothing is going to stand in their way once they start it.  So to push everything under the carpet and pretend nothing is happening - only adds to the trouble that's already there, and sooner or later it will start to show.  And the sad thing about it is, everybody around you can see it - but you.  Which leads to the next part of my message.

When people enter into a relationship with Christ, what part of the message titillates their goose bump?  Is it the happy-clappy stuff, where everything is fine and dandy, whereby everybody sails off into the sunset like in some fairytale book?  Or once people make a commitment to follow Christ, its going to be hard and tough, and some of us are going to have to be worked on if anything is going to survive?  Final paragraph or four.

Whenever people commit themselves to Christ, they're only told one side of the story.  Its a bit like signing up for the Army.  They're promised excitement and adventure, but leave out that somewhere along the line you may feel like you're being shot to bits, and bodies are going to start flying all over the place when it happens - which superficially speaking is not what they signed up for.  And if people were to read my profile page, I mentioned something about Christian casualties - that people were only presented with one side of the gospel, whereby there's a whole chunk of the gospel that is being left out. Nobody told them that they would be persecuted for their beliefs.  Nobody told people that their feelings are going to be put through a meat grinder, and nobody told them that its going to be tough.  All they're told is angel's river-dancing on the duvet doing the happy-clappy dance, which now leads to the scripture that ties everything up in this message.

2 Corinthians 4:4 [Amplified version].  For [you seem readily to endure it] if a man comes and preaches another Jesus than the One we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the [Spirit] you [once] received or a different gospel from the one you [then] received and welcomed; you tolerate [all that] well enough!

Anybody know what I'm getting at?  Going back to the movie "Fireproof."  When that man started out on his journey to try and please and bring back his wife's heart, it was not as simple as was written in the book.  And although his father gave it to him in his own handwriting to study and do - because that was the only way his son would accept it, it was actually his wife who went through all the stuff that was written in the book.  And it was the father who was considering divorcing her, not the other-way round that was happening in the son's marriage.  So what am I trying to get at here?  Final (and I mean final) paragraph.

Whether in a relationship with Christ - or in a relationship within a marriage, it tougher than people think.  And I often think to myself, are we doing a dis-service to people - when people only present one side of the gospel?  In effect, presenting "another Jesus" - that although sounds nice, people cannot relate to?  In a nutshell, people want to know about the Jesus who went hard times.  The one who's back was against the wall, and the one who conquered everything when the going got tough, who went through some stuff before conquering it, because all people are encouraged to do - is pray about it.  But as that film so rightly pointed out, there are some things in life whereby you feel like kicking something into the middle of next week.  And here's the stinger in the tail.  You don't have to be married to feel like it.  So as the title of this messages states, who is this Jesus you talk about when everything around you is going belly up?  And what is it that Jesus talked about that is largely missed out - that people go through when they hit the buffers in life?  Did He just pray about it, or was there a part of Him that did something about it when the going got tough?  So if I were to put this whole message in a nutshell, there's more to this Christian walk than just saying the sinners prayer, and not everything is going to be angel's river-dancing on the duvet doing a happy-clappy dance.  But that's what people hear mostly in church isn't it?  So question.  Is that why people are so messed up, because they were never told the other half where commitment really begins?  It begins when you're back is against the wall.  Remember.  Faith doesn't grow in a land of plenty.  If that were the case, it would take no faith at all - as that man found out when he entered into trying to save his marriage - which he finally did, but it took more than was written in the book that his father presented him with.  Faith is only activated when you are stretched to the limit - and there's just you and God.  So how many people hear about that when the going gets tough - that it takes more than faith, and that there's an actual part people have to do for it to survive?  Perhaps that's why there's so many Christian casualties - because they don't know how to deal with it.  They're only presented with one half of the gospel, but the other half gets left out. In short, there's only one half of Jesus they want to know about.  Its the one that titillates their goose bump, but not the one - that when the going gets tough, it is something they will have to deal with.  In short, there's more to it than just praying about it.  Just look under that spiritual carpet that people have shoved things under that people don't want to deal with to understand what I mean.  And like above, is that why people are so messed up because they don't know how to?  And going back to the friends I mentioned above. Their marriage is stronger now than it was ever before, because they refused to give up, and they didn't substitute one type of Jesus for another type of Jesus when they tackled it, which some people do when they hit the buffers in life.  And I must be honest with people here.  Whenever I've heard messages in the past, they preach to the most vulnerable people in life - and that's when things start going belly up, because they don't want to hear anything other than another Jesus that not many can relate to, because if people were to read Exodus 32:1-3 [NIV] it becomes a problem when people try to make things up as they go along.  In short.  The one they made up was not the One that brought them out of Egypt.  And as we all know - Egypt represented a land of captivity whereby people were slaves.  They made up a god that was not the God of the bible, and it angered Him when they did so.  Anyway, I'll leave you to ponder on that.  Do people make things up as they go along in the hope it will be acceptable?  Here ends my message on who is this Jesus you talk about.  Maybe I should have ended it with a question mark, because in some instances - people like myself cannot relate to something in the way Jesus related it to people when He confronted them - that it is not as simple as a 40-day plan.  And that is what I learnt when I saw the film "Fireproof."  But I only learnt it after seeing it.  So my only hope is that people see it (and I don't mean the film) before it happens.