Michael Tolosa

And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” … Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

- Matthew 19:16-22

In this passage, Jesus comes across a rich young ruler, who is enthusiastic about “earning” his salvation by doing some great task. Jesus asks him if he’s kept all the commandments, to which he replies, “perfectly.” Then Jesus says good, just sell everything you own and give the money to the poor and follow me. To this, the young man turned away sad.

Basically, what Jesus did was show how the man had not even kept the first commandment — You shall have no other gods before me. To the rich man, his wealth and possessions were his god — more important to him than following Christ.

Jesus later warns that it is very difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven for this very reason — rich men tend to put their faith and trust in their wealth and material goods. Which is a distraction from the faith and trust they must have in Christ’s sacrifice alone to save them.

Salvation isn’t gained from any task we must perform — as we will never be able to keep every commandment of God perfectly. And since perfection is required for salvation, no one will every achieve salvation by following the law. It’s a fool’s quest.

Instead, our only hope is in the perfection of Christ. If Christ’s sacrifice paid for our sins, then we are considered perfect in God’s eyes. So, the question is, how do we get Christ’s death to apply to us? That’s easy… Faith. Believe that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, and that his death is the only way you can be saved. That’s it. Just believe it. Then cling to Christ and follow him from now on.

There’s no task you can do. Just believe.

I’ve always had a problem with this story in the Bible. From childhood, I’ve been a collector of every possible thing I could collect. I was a pack-rat of sorts, determined to get every item in a series, whether it be comic books, music CDs, or Blu-ray discs.

I’ve always struggled with materialism. So, when I read of the rich young ruler in the Bible, I have great sympathy for his dilemma. If I was ever asked to sell all I had and follow Christ, I don’t think I would be able to do it. For all of my 33 years of life on this earth, I never thought I could do it.

Then last month, I felt compelled (or called) to do just that. Sell everything I was collecting. Every possible collection had to go.

First, I started selling off all the books and DVDs I didn’t want. Surely, that would be enough. But after getting rid of a few thing, I noticed I felt like I didn’t need some of the stuff that was left. Wave after wave, I sold off everything except my “must haves.” Then when that was through, I trimmed more, and so on.

Pretty soon, I had sold all but a handful of Blu-ray discs, CDs, and books. I had gotten rid of 3/4 of my possessions — not stopping with collectible media. I sold all three of my video game systems (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii), several of my cameras, and every single comic book I still owned (I donated those to a friend).

At this point, my condo looks very modest. Yet I am still compelled to sell or give away more. Who knows where this will end?

But the benefit of having done all this is that I now enter my home and have a completely blank slate of how I wish to spend my time. No longer is there an unwatched Netflix movie, or an unread book, or a hot new video game demanding my attention. I come in, sit down, and have absolute freedom.

Now I can turn my attention where it belongs… to Christ. My life is now structured in such a way that I can easily find time to pray, read the Bible, and write down my thoughts. It’s perfect. I may even find time to make exercise a regular part of my day.

I couldn’t do that before. With all the junk that was squeezing shut my days. I’ve cut out almost everything in my life and am wary to add anything back in.

Things are different now. And I’m excited to see what Christ has in store for me, as I begin to follow him wherever he wants me to go.

10. Play in a Christian rock band.

9. Join a small group.

8. Teach a Sunday school class.

7. Kick a ball.

6. Break up with a girlfriend.

5. Sell all I own.

4. Invite a complete stranger to church.

3. Put a “Jesus fish” on my car.

2. Give up a profession.

1. Openly blog/tweet about 10 things I never thought I’d do for Jesus.

I keep putting myself in these high-stress situations, where I have to perform in some way. Whether it’s the Charisma Arts boot camp I took last year (where I had to approach girls in bars and engage them in compelling conversations), or singing karaoke in front of friends and strangers, or taking an improv comedy class where I have to act out a scene in front of other students completely off-the-cuff. These were all very tough things to do. But what I’ve learned through all of them was how to just go and do it. These things have taught me boldness and confidence in every situation.

The boot camp was probably the hardest of the three situations I mentioned. There’s nothing harder than trying to win over an audience that is hostile towards you. Beautiful girls in bars have a defensive shield around them, and they’re skeptical of every guy who talks to them. They rightly assume the guys are hitting on them. Which makes engaging them in an entertaining conversation that much more difficult.

Karaoke was the easiest. All you need is the boldness to get up on stage. You don’t have to worry about what to say, because the words are scrolling on the teleprompter. You just have to be willing to put yourself on display and, in the worst-case scenario, look like a fool in front of your friends. I had no problem doing that.

Improv was somewhere in the middle. At the first class, I was hesitant to put myself out on display in front of 10 strangers. But after a few classes, I began trusting my classmates and actually liked them a lot as people. So performing in class became very easy. And to be honest, I just acted like myself during skits – so it wasn’t very difficult. Performing in class was very comfortable, because both the other students and the teachers are rooting for your success. They want you to do well. It’s a very positive audience.

That changed a little when I was asked to perform in front of a real audience last week during the FIST competition. I didn’t have a problem saying yes to my teacher, who asked me to join her 3-person team on the eve of their performance. After all, improv was much easier than the Charisma Arts boot camp – and if I could survive that, I could survive any performance situation.

I also had something within me during the FIST tournament that I didn’t have in those other past experiences. I had a calming faith that it would all work out well.

Those who know me well know that I’m a committed Christian. Those who find out I’m a Christian after getting to know me well are often surprised.

Not long ago (maybe a month or so), I decided to unplug from many of the distractions of my life. (I didn’t do this specifically for Lent – although the timing was perfect.) I unsubscribed from news, technology, and political podcasts. I stopped reading blogs and news sites. I didn’t watch television. I spent much less time on the Internet. And I made other sacrifices.

Instead, I spent my free time exercising and reading the Bible. I wanted to read through all 66 books by the end of the year.

By the time I reached Exodus (the second book), I had already found several parallels to my experiences with improv. There were many instances where God told people to go somewhere inconvenient to accomplish some task. And not only that, but the circumstances were so unlikely that the task could be accomplished, that the only explanation could be that it was God who made it happen. Noah and the flood. Abraham having a son. Joseph becoming the governor of Egypt. Moses leading Israel out of Egypt. God accomplished impossible tasks through people who were willing to go.

When I was asked to fill in for a member of my teacher’s improv team in the FIST tournament, I said yes. I didn’t make excuses that I was just a beginner, or that it was really inconvenient for me to get to DC multiple times a week. I just said yes. Here am I.

Even though our one & only practice — a few hours before our performance on Saturday — started off very badly (we even considered forfeiting), we eventually gelled and felt good about going into the evening’s performance. As we stood backstage ready to run out to perform, I didn’t feel anxiety. I just kept talking to God saying, “You brought me here for a reason. I came, but this is your show. Put the words into my mouth, and I’ll say them.” And I had faith that God would take care of me – that I had nothing to worry about. I also knew, without a doubt, we would win.

We weren’t great, but we did win. And it was awesome. We were congratulated and met with smiles from everyone backstage and everyone associated with WIT.

It was an impossible situation… A team who hadn’t practice together prior to the day of the performance (and included two total beginners) could go out and perform better than a level 3 team. It was awesome.

And all I had to do was go.

We didn’t win the next round. Everything seemed kind of off that day. Or rather, everything seemed normal. We felt like a team who hadn’t practice together more than two days. We felt like a team that included two total beginners.

Our second performance really put the improbability of our first victory into perspective. Which made the reason behind our victory much more obvious to me.

After all of this was over, I read a passage in Exodus that sums up my view of faith’s integration with improv…

Then Moses said to the Lord, “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” So the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.”

- Exodus 4:10-12

“Give to everyone who asks you …” – Luke 6:30

“… the righteous gives and does not hold back.” – Proverbs 21:26

I spent the morning helping Harley pack up her apartment in Arlington. I know how hard it is to get people to help you move (especially during normal work hours), so I felt her pain. I felt compelled to lend a hand, when she posted a bulletin on MySpace pleading for help. I don’t really know her, but I couldn’t help but remember the verse where Christ says to “give to everyone who asks you.”

No matter how inconvenient.

I had to take the morning off of work and will lose the pay for those hours. But that’s okay.

Giving a tithe (or tenth) to God doesn’t just mean money. He wants us to honor him with a tenth of everything. One hundred percent is his, and he only asks for a tenth back. And it’s not just giving to the church. It’s helping those in need. Lending a hand. Lending your time to help.

Serving others is the new tithe.

I was in the grocery store the other day, checking out the kids cereal aisle. Since I moved, I’ve been trying out different cereals each time I go to the grocery store. The first time, I tried Apple Jacks (one of my all-time favorites). Then I tried Honey Smacks (another excellent choice). Most recently, I picked up Cinnamon Toast Crunch (okay, but gets soggy way too quickly).

As I was perusing the other choices, I noticed that Crunch Berries now had a bunch of other color berries in it (not just the red ones). I noticed that Cherios were now multi-colored and looked like Fruit Loops. Pretty much every cereal I saw looked pretty much the same as the others. They were all multi-colored O’s or balls (like Trixx).

After years and years of promotional stunts—adding new flavors & colored marshmallows—the end result is that there is very little uniqueness in the cereal aisle.

And it’s not just cereals. I wanted to buy a bag of Starburst and discovered several choices of Starburst. There were the normal flavors, sour flavors, and jellybeans. Don’t even get me started on M&M’s. They have like ten varieties!

I don’t want to sound like an old fogey, but you can’t beat the originals. They were the best. They were really good, unique products—then some new marketing exec comes into the company and tries to temporarily raise sales by making some minor change to a stellar product. As turnover takes place in the company, and the business units fail to find other ways to increase revenue, more marketing execs decide to tinker with the product—adding more marshmallows and flavors.

The end result… Loss of uniqueness. A watered down brand. They’re mallowed-out.

Aside: I know there’s a universal application to this somewhere…

The same thing has happened with Christianity. You started with a stellar, unique “product” like the Gospel message. It’s simple and compelling.

Then you get all of these ministry leaders (aka marketing execs) trying to make the simple product more appealing to the masses. They add some new gimmick or technology/practice into the mix in order to seem more relevant or unique. But after years and years of tampering with the product, we’re left with multiple church denominations and a mass assumption that Christianity is relative and emotion-based.

If you ask a random person to define Christianity, they’ll probably say something like, it’s a bunch of Conservatives telling people how they can or can’t live. Or that it’s an emotional crutch for people who want to feel better about themselves and about the things that happen in this world.

The Christian world is filled with marshmallows.

If you break it down to its original, simple message—you get something so shocking to today’s world, that only a very small minority is willing to communicate it in public.

God created man perfect. Man sinned and fell. God requires man to be perfect to enter Heaven. Since man cannot be perfect on his own—and since God loved man so much—God sent his perfect Son, Jesus, to earth to pay for the sins of mankind. Jesus died for man’s sins, thus giving man an imputed perfection—which will allow man to enter Heaven. The only way for man to have Jesus’ sacrifice applied to his account is to simply believe & have faith in Jesus’ sacrifice as the sole means of salvation.

It’s a very simple, step-by-step process.

That’s what Christianity is in a nutshell.

So, how did we get from this simple message to bombing abortion clinics, boycotting Teletubbies, and burning Marilyn Manson CDs?

The answer is…

Marshmallows.