The Jesus Empire

At work, we are getting a new manager. The old one is leaving for greener pastures of technology and the new one is a returning manager. The returning manager was an assistant manager for years here but transferred out to become a store manager, and now that her home store has that spot opening, she was a logical choice. She has plans to try and bring people back into caring about their job, something that has become a pandemic in our workplace. I suspect it is a problem in many workplaces.

If she can bring back caring back into the store, which I believe she can, our store will grow again. Not only in sales, which is great for the company, but also the relationships that have formed and fallen apart in the store. It will bring about a revival of sorts, and we will all grow stronger and be better for it.

Jesus came much like a new manager to bring caring and relationship back into the world. Over the years before Jesus came, people had adopted many of the pagan ways, worshiping false Gods, idols, money, and other people over the creator. People stopped caring, felt lost, and were unhappy with the current management. The work got sloppy and we fell behind on our work.

Even after Jesus came, the church began to do the same thing, we stopped showing the love of God to the world, began to push our opinions onto a crowd of people who were just looking for someone to lead them. Disinterest in the church grew, and numbers began to fall. Often someone would come along with big dreams of revival just to be brought back down by the people they hoped to strengthen.

My new manager used to work here and she was one of the great ones that brought our group together, to push harder and sell more. She left to work at another store and maybe to prepare for a time when she could come back. Jesus did this, he came to us, and showed us how to run his big business of salvation. He then left after the guidelines were done to prepare his home office for work. He will come back again, this time to take total control of his company. The Jesus Empire.

Jesus in a suit. From this page. It's kinda
interesting too.

A frightening thought arises here, many people who say they work for Jesus, say they are members of the biggest company the universe has ever known, will find out that they were not on the payroll. They will find that all the work they did was not for Jesus but they were doing it for themselves. Jesus will turn from them and say "I don't know you." Even still there will be people who we didn't know worked for the company and will get promotions and awards for their service.

It is a very scary thing to think that when Jesus comes back to take control of his business, that everything will change. Change is always a scary thing. But change is what keeps things fresh and breathing. But if you take up your cross, follow Jesus, keep his Code of Ethics that he set down when he started the company as a carpenter and a priest, the change wont be so bad. Jesus will come and breath new life back into his company, and all will see the glory of God shine.

To fully see this Empire in all its glory, each of us must choose to fully give ourselves under his control. We must become slaves to the only master that could ever truly deserve the name. It is a hard struggle to fully follow Jesus into everywhere, but following him is the only way we can have life. I know that I do not follow him as well as I should, or even as well as I want to. I sin. I fall back into my sin because it is easy. As a human, I prefer what is easy, especially when that easy has much of the same short term rewards as the hard. But we need to look past the short term, we need to think IRA and retirement. We need to think eternally.

So as with my new manager, I am excited for a change that can come and rock this Empire Jesus had made. We should play that corporate game no one likes to play and bring as many new employees to work as possible. In the Jesus Empire, everyone has a job to do. Everyone will get their hopes and dreams fulfilled. Everyone. As long as they are employees and not corporate spies. Welcome to the new empire of the one true and living God, Welcome to the Jesus Empire.