“There was a doctor who was treating a patient recently in the hospital who was on supplemental oxygen. This means that whatever he was doing, there was a device that he had to use to give him every essential life sustaining breath. If he decided to take a vacation for a weekend and leave his oxygen behind, it’s game over...
Jesus was no longer oxygen to me. I realized that he was more like salad. I like salad. I respect it’s benefits. Who’s going to argue against SALAD?! But I simply don’t need it every day...just recreationally. Every now and then to balance life out.
We are alive when we have oxygen to breath, but a relationship with Jesus isn’t just "part of a balanced breakfast." It IS life. Without Him, we might as well hold our breaths. But I suppose that is exactly what we often do. We walk around day to day holding our breath and depriving myself of the life-saving Jesus-Oxygen, and wonder why we’re sick? We wonder why we see the stench of death all around us in every interaction. The problem is that there is no life in us.
In the early church, this was not the casual formality that we’ve made it today. The baptismal declaration or confession is “I confess you O Christ and all your redeeming laws and life giving service.” The instructions that follow remind us to know that if you want to continue in this oxygen, you better continue to inhale the “breath of God” in the life giving books.
It holds us accountable with a reminder that from this day forward we will stand before Christ the judge and give an account to it all.
Let’s analyze our way of life, are we making Christ a side dish, where we look to eat from every once in a while, or has He been our Oxygen. The enemy prowls around looking for us to make a mistake, let us be watchful that we aren’t putting Christ to the side.
Source: Dr. Mena Mirhom
