Should Lebron be who you want him to be?

Watch this commercial (Nike will pay me 10% of profits if you do):

Back story (skip this if you follow basketball): Lebron James grew up in Akron, near Cleveland. Got drafted by Cleveland and played there for 7 seasons. This summer was the end of his contract, he decided to play with two all-stars: Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh instead of staying with Cleveland or going to a team with less skilled players. The media and many people, including Michael Jordan, attacked Lebron’s decision as weak. He shouldn’t need other players to win a championship. He’s ruined his legacy.

The Commercial

This is one of the clearest examples of post-modernism I’ve ever seen. Who is Lebron James? It never answers the question, it shows a bunch of options and leaves you with a sense that you should accept Lebron as a multi-faceted person and player. Lebron simply asks you the question, and never defines himself.

Do you call him the villian? 

Do you call him the comedian?

Lebron never gives you the answer one way or another – this is post-modernism; allowing all thoughts and paths to knowledge to be acceptable. But think about Lebron James, put yourself in his shoes. Care about a celebrity for one second! What do you think he wants to be known as? Do you think he wants to be called a bad role model, traitor, or villian?

Ofacoarse not – the dude wants to be the King. King James.

Like the commercial shows, there are many things you can call Lebron James, but I’m arguing that Lebron only wants to be called one central thing – the King. Everything else is offensive to him. And calling him a traitor or bad model may be okay in your own eyes, but to him that’s going to be ridiculous. At that point you no longer become a fan of Lebron James, but rather someone who is against him!

We Do The Same Thing To God

We call God different things, and we are okay with it. Would you say it’s okay for Muslims and Christians to have completely different views about God? In our post-modern age many think this is okay. Just like Lebron James, it’s like we can give him any identity that we want. Ultimately, it’s subjective. But what does God say about himself? God cannot be okay with so many different identities being said to him. How dare you try to tell God who he is. How dare you try to tell Lebron James who he is. You’re no longer a fan at this point, you reject the King at this point! The question remains, and I’ll ask you:

Should God be who you want him to be???

“There’s no way to know what’s really true, therefor Christians can’t claim they have exclusive truth”

The short response is simply: “Is that statement true? How do you know that statement is true”  But I’ll explain in more detail.

this is the written version:

This statement is very similar to an example of blind men and an elephant.  (diagram and Elephant diagram) … so the elephant is like God, and all these religions are blind. They touch and feel different parts of the elephant, the Christian says he’s like a snake, and lanky… the Muslim says he’s firm and strong like a tree… and so on… But they are all blind, so they cant say they know everything. In fact, all religions may just be partial truths of the same thing.
So back to the statement “theres no way to know whats true”… and basically there’s no way of seeing the elephant, because everyone is blind.
The problem is that you place yourself out here, you are the only person that isn’t blind, and the only person that really knows what the elephant looks like.The statement contradicts itself… its like many strong truth claims against knowing truth:

“there is no truth” – (is this statement true?)
“no one can know any truth about religion” (then how did you come up with that truth about religion?)
“there is no way to know what’s really true?” (then in what way did you discover that that statement is true?”

And my point is this, you cannot make that statement without contradicting yourself. 2ndly, no one lives there life like this. You wouldn’t go to university if there was no way to discover what’s true.

But there’s still an elephant in the room. We still have to figure out God.(change scenery)

Some people respond they simple want to live a life under the golden rule, that they treat other people the way they would like to be treated. –I’m always tempted to call plagerism at this point… i mean jesus came up with that first… —

Would you rather have an objective God, or a subjective god?

Assuming you believe in some sort of God, you can’t simply create your own new God. All religions are not the same, muslims think Christians are blamphous when they speak of how God can personally talk to them. Hindu’s believe in millions of gods, and Jewish people completely reject the idea of a Jesus Messiah…
For you to say that God accepts all religions equally – you are creating a new religion. It’s actually a bigger leap of faith to claim this then to have faith in Christianity. Because that faith is subjective.

I’m way off track. Back to the question. How do we find truth.
Regardless if Christianity is true… Christianity does make the biggest claims about knowing what’s true. Other religions are based on men who dreamt God, or perhaps visited God for a brief period of time. But Christianity is the only major world religion that has God coming to us. As the Son of God, Jesus says he is from heaven, from God, and that he is eternal. Jesus declares the only way to get to God is through him.
These are huge statements. And if they are true, then they outweigh any other dreams/thoughts/visits to god, because those are subjectivity based. So if you get to Jesus, you get to God.
Now this means that if true, Jesus is the best way to get truth about God. Regardless of what other men or women say.

In closing… some of you won’t take the time to study the historical Jesus and I admit that scholars will debate Jesus’ exact words… but in our life practically we never reject peoples claims. If you need to interview someone for a job, and they say they are honest, hardworking, and punctual… its hard to believe them. You can check references and ask around, but you will never know if who they say they are is true until you make a committeement. This is faith. It’s a committement, and sometimes you have to step inside that commitment inorder to really figure if out if the employee is who they say they are.
Now faith is Jesus is alittle different, but you get the idea.

Next up (goal to post every wednesday night)
– Christians only believe because of their social setting (because their parents believed)
– Problem of Evil – how did bad things happen to good people and how can a loving God let evil occur?
– Does God Exist?
– Science/evolution
– Religion does more harm than good
– How can a loving God send someone to hell.