Somewhere along the way, faith stopped being the foundation—and started becoming something people build on top of everything else they already believe. Instead of Christ defining the identity, the identity starts defining Christ. Instead of Scripture shaping the person, the person—through culture, politics, and preference—begins to shape how Scripture is understood, applied, or even ignored.
It doesn’t usually happen all at once. No one wakes up and decides to replace their allegiance to Christ with allegiance to a political ideology. It’s quieter than that. It starts with agreement. A value here, a perspective there. Then alignment. Then defense. And before long, truth itself begins to feel negotiable—not because it changed, but because it now has to pass through another filter before it’s accepted. If it aligns with what we already believe, we embrace it. If it challenges our position, we explain it away, reinterpret it, or avoid it altogether. And without realizing it, we’ve stopped letting truth confront us and started asking it to confirm us.
This is where the words of Christ begin to press in with uncomfortable clarity: no one can serve two masters. Not because it’s difficult—but because it’s impossible. One will always take priority. One will always shape the other. And the real question isn’t whether someone claims to follow Christ, but whether Christ is the one defining what they believe about morality, justice, mercy, truth, and how they live it out. Because it’s entirely possible to speak about Christ, quote Scripture, and still have something else quietly sitting in authority over what is accepted as truth.
What makes this even more difficult to see is that it doesn’t belong to one side. This isn’t a conservative problem or a progressive problem. It’s a human problem. We are all drawn to what affirms us. We all feel the pull to hold tightly to the truths that benefit us and loosen our grip on the ones that cost us something. But truth doesn’t work like that. It isn’t something we get to divide into categories of comfort and inconvenience. If it’s truth, it has authority—complete authority. And the moment we start choosing which parts to follow based on how they affect our position, we’re no longer standing in truth. We’re negotiating with it.
That negotiation often reveals itself in subtle contradictions. Calls for justice in one area, silence in another. Strong convictions about sin in others, but hesitation when it appears closer to home. Passion for certain commands of Christ, while others are treated as secondary, optional, or misunderstood. And yet, Scripture doesn’t present truth as something that bends around us. It presents truth as something that transforms us. Something that cuts, refines, corrects, and reshapes—not just parts of us, but all of us.
The tension comes when following Christ begins to cost something real. When His words challenge not just “them,” but us. Our views. Our loyalties. Our sense of being right. That’s where identity is revealed. Because if our identity is truly in Christ, then we don’t approach truth as something to defend—we approach it as something to submit to. Even when it’s uncomfortable. Even when it puts us at odds with the people or systems we feel connected to. Even when it exposes inconsistencies in our own thinking.
Christ never called His followers to build their identity around the systems of the world and then fit Him into that framework. He called them to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Him. That kind of calling doesn’t leave room for divided allegiance. It doesn’t allow us to filter truth through political convenience or cultural pressure. It requires something deeper—something more honest. A willingness to let truth speak fully, not selectively. A willingness to be corrected, not just affirmed.
Because the reality is this: if Christ always agrees with us, then we’re not really following Him. We’re following a version of Him that we’ve shaped to fit what we already believe. And that version will never challenge us, never refine us, never call us higher than where we already stand.
But the real Christ does.
He challenges every side. Every label. Every identity we try to hold onto outside of Him. He doesn’t come to reinforce our position—He comes to transform our hearts. And that transformation begins the moment we stop asking whether truth aligns with us, and start asking whether we align with truth.