You have configured Jesus to fit your life. Not consciously, not maliciously, but you have done it nonetheless. The algorithm of your preferences, your comfort thresholds, your political loyalties, your financial anxieties — they all quietly shape the version of Jesus you bring to church, to prayer, and to your decisions. The result is a Jesus who agrees with you more than he challenges you, who blesses your plans more than he disrupts them, and who functions, if you are honest, more like a life coach than a Lord. Kyle Idleman, Senior Pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville and author of the new book The Missing Messiah, joins me for a conversation that will do exactly what you are afraid this kind of conversation will do: poke the box.
Kyle draws a precise and unflinching distinction between Christian culture and kingdom culture, between a transactional faith built around what Jesus can do for you and a transformational discipleship built around following him wherever he goes. We cover the algorithm Jesus keeps breaking, the compartmentalized faith that lets him rummage in your “religion drawer” but not your finances, your politics, or your relationships, and the specific consequence no one wants to name: that a domesticated, comfortable, cushy Jesus is not going to hold you when the hardest seasons of your life arrive.
If your faith has never asked you to count the cost, that is not evidence of grace. It is evidence of a missing Messiah. This conversation will not make you feel better about where you are; it will make you want to go further. That is the invitation, and it requires something of you.
Guest Bio
Kyle Idleman is the Senior Pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, one of the largest churches in America, where he preaches to more than 22,000 people every weekend. A sought-after speaker for national conventions and some of the most influential churches in the country, Kyle is the bestselling author of Not a Fan and, most recently, The Missing Messiah, cowritten with Mark Moore — a searching confrontation with the version of Jesus Western Christianity has quietly built in its own image.
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Resources Mentioned This Week
- The Missing Messiah: The Jesus We Can No Longer Ignore
- Healing What You Can’t Erase: Transform Your Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Health from the Inside Out
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