What's the Alternative to Jesus?

One of the things I have been asked to do in a Bible study has been to imagine where my life would be now if I had never chosen to follow Jesus.  Well, imagine all I want, I have no idea.  I can only surmise the extent of how bad it would be, not real particulars.  For me, the worse thing to imagine is changing my mind and walking away from Him now.  This is one of the classic debates in Reformation Theology, can you choose not to follow once you have chosen to follow?  The answer is either, "yes" and your salvation is your choice rather than God's sovereignty, or "no" and your salvation is dependent on God's sovereignty, not your choice.  It's usually about this point in the discussion, after both sides have stated their positions, pontificated on the various passages of Scripture, and worked themselves up into a hateful, spiteful frenzy, that I suggest my Theology of the Last Man Standing (see my post from March 6, 2011) and become the new agreed upon target of their wrath.  The fun part is that Scripture seems to allow both views, which is really frustrating to both sides.  I figure if either view is not big enough of a deal to my Master to settle it one way or the other, why should it be to me?  I'm guessing there is another point He sees as more important.

So, having once experienced the close personal relationship with my Master, the Creator of the universe, Conqueror of all evil, Super Power of all powers, undisputed Ruler of everything, can I leave and find something better?  Can I simply divorce myself from this relationship, "I have outgrown you," and move on to... To what?  I understand that people who have no concept of how such a person could exist with so much wrong with the world can choose other relationships.  I get that; I think they're afraid or missing the obvious, but I get it.  I even get someone walking away from church; an amazing collection of frail faulty humans struggling to appear holy and devoted to God so no one will figure out their secret profane quirks and foibles.  I totally and thoroughly get that; I even considered walking away more than once myself.

What I don't get is someone walking way from God the Person, rejecting the relationship with their Maker once experienced.  Having said that, an anecdote is necessary.  I used to drive the US 101 freeway stretch between Camarillo, California, up the second steepest grade in California, to Agoura, California, and back every day.  On one particular on-ramp to the 101 heading back toward Camarillo, the trick is to get up to freeway speed as you come out of a hairpin circle with about 100 feet or less of straight disappearing lane.  The way the trick works is to push your vehicle of choice to the edge of its ability to grip the road at a given speed as you traverse the tight circle and then punch it as the car comes out of the curve into the short straight merge lane.  For some reason, in the midst of the tight circle, just at the edge of the feeling of the tires of my car starting to wiggle loose of the pavement, the thought of God's existence would float through my mind and I would wonder if all my devotion to Him, life spent in His service, or even my childhood really was for anything substantial and real.  It wasn't my death I considered, I guess that was sort of a given, that one day this curve would be the end of me.  It was about what happens then that my mind focused on.  What if this were all for nothing and God really didn't exist?  If that were so, what happens to my family when I die was really moot, or not my problem anymore.  In fact it would free me up to be callous about lots of things, like responsibilities.  You might imagine that entering the highway was a very grumpy person by the end of the short merge lane.  Some days you may have been right, but not typically.

What I learned in that short stretch of daily NASCAR terror was something of what Peter responded to Jesus when the Twelve were asked if they would be leaving as well.  In John 6, Jesus essentially runs off a huge crowd of followers by discussing devotion to Him in cannibalistic terminology, extremely offensive to the cultural mores of his listeners (including the Twelve).  This not what the Twelve expected, and seemed counter intuitive to trying to setup an earthly kingdom.  It seems that Judas didn't like it more than the other eleven, but, from Jesus' question to all of them, it migh be that their faces showed they weren't happy to see the crowd disperse either. "Do you also wish to leave?"  Peter answers for the rest (sort of, probably not Judas) when he says that they still believe Jesus is the "Holy One of God."

The lesson for he and I is that, at this point, there are not a lot of alternatives, in fact there are none.  The way I explain in conversation with others is that Jesus has become so insinuated in the very warp and woof of the core of my soul, that it would cost my very being to reject Him at this point.  I would have to become a completely different person.  I don't even know how to do that.  In short, I can't not believe in Jesus as the Son of God, Savior of the world.  The double-negative is an intentional emphatic device to drive home this point.  It is not possible for me to reject my belief in Jesus at this stage of my life, I have passed the point-of-no-return.  There are very deep and personal experiences that play into that, but there are also some philosophical elements that I have pushed through and discovered that my belief in Jesus as Savior really is the ony alternative that makes sense of this totally messed up world I live in.

So, while other alternatives may exist in the minds of my Master's other human creatures, they do not exist in mine, at least not for longer than it takes to circumnavigate a freakishly designed freeway on-ramp.  Is it possible to loose the relationship with my Master once gained?  It would be like loosing my heart or my head; if I did, I would be dead anyway, so the question is without merit.  Can I choose not to follow my Master once I have submitted to His mastery?  I honestly don't know.  I can't imagine the possibility enough to come up with a difinitive answer.  It doesn't really seem possible, but it goes beyond my ability to create such a setting in my mind, so I have no mental frame of reference to create a sustainable supportable answer.  I truly don't know.  Perhaps I need to take another spin on the on-ramp of death to consider again the possibility of the non-existance of my Master.  Right now though, I think I will just enjoy His presence and move on into this day He has given me.