Me-Centered Faith Incognito

In an interview with Christianity Today, the late Eugene Peterson, author of The Message warned against consumer Christianity. He said:

“One way to define spiritual life is getting so tired and fed up with yourself you go on to something better, which is following Jesus. 

But the minute we start advertising the faith in terms of benefits, we're just exacerbating the self problem. ‘With Christ, you're better, stronger, more likeable, you enjoy some ecstasy.’ But it's just more self. Instead, we want to get people bored with themselves so they can start looking at Jesus.

We've all met a certain type of spiritual person. She's a wonderful person. She loves the Lord. She prays and reads the Bible all the time. But all she thinks about is herself. She's not a selfish person. But she's always at the center of everything she's doing. ‘How can I witness better? How can I do this better? How can I take care of this person's problem better?’ It's me, me, me disguised in a way that is difficult to see because her spiritual talk disarms us.”

I think Peterson had a good point. Certainly, becoming better at witnessing and counseling and other Christ-like things is good, but shifting our primary focus from personal self-improvement to a focus on participating in Jesus helps us to keep Jesus at the center, and he remains our greatest desire.