Hey y’all! It’s been a while but I feel this really heavily on my heart and need to write it all out. I’m not even certain I will post it.
These past months, I think even years since I last blogged have been an insane period of growth and just, honestly, wreckage. Dismantling everything I thought I knew and being shown truth and amazing glory in a way I have never known.
Recently I have been sitting in this idea of the differences between the Church that are so visible, particularly between the East and the West.
Here, in the U.S., Jesus is painted as a cheerleader. Someone who wants your life to go as smoothly as possible, as successful, prosperous, rich as possible! He wants as many people as possible to get in the door of a megachurch with the only goal as getting them to tithe and keep coming back. Tithing to what? A bigger building, another kids’ program, an Assistant to the Youth Pastor’s associate’s salary. A kingdom we are building here. Coming back to what? A large, intensely air-conditioned light show with an ear-tickling message that is careful to get lots of enthusiastic “amens” and gentle conviction, but nothing that would make someone hesitant to come back. Never that.
But, people, that wasn’t Jesus of Nazareth. He dismantled the religion of the day, completely attacked the temple’s business mentality, calling it a den of thieves! Matthew 21:13. How have we come so far from the early Church? Believe it or not, church was never ever biblically referred to as anything but a body of people! You were never meant to GO to church, you were meant to BE the church! How, people, have we strayed so far? How have we gone so deeply into the wrong direction?
We build our temples, but ourselves in debt. We look at the congregation of people, who as God’s church, should be moving in spiritual giftings and power, healing, and doing greater works than Jesus! John 14:12. Yet, we sit them in a room. Tell them to be still and listen to the one or two actually “gifted” and the greatest of them can hold doors open. We stuff them down, and choke them out. In the hopes that they will lift us out of debt that we have put ourselves in in order to gain a larger room and a better sound system.
And whatever is left over? We will then decide to be generous. Maybe help some homeless people with a meal, then call it a day. Forget discipleship. Forget pursuing people and telling them to obey Jesus’ commandments, baptizing them in Spirit, let’s only give them a $20 so we can feel like we’ve done our jobs for the month. But what about their souls, their salvation? We say we love Jesus, yet Jesus says distinctly that those who love Him obey His commandments! John 14:21. And those who wish to follow Him must take up their cross daily, willing to be persecuted and hurt for the Gospel! Luke 9:23. He says that anyone who claims to know Him but does not obey His commands is a liar, and there is no truth in Him. 1 John 2:4.
We shouldn’t be teaching people to stay complacent and happy, getting fed week after week with a “good message” that is topical, using Scripture to aid in our own ideas, and then sending people home to feel good about themselves, but teaching them to obey the commands of Jesus and teach others to do the same!
People, this isn’t legalism or a “works-based” faith. No, everyone, this is an understanding that the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, seated on a throne, with endless worship by angels singing over Him “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty.” This guy! He formed the MOUNTAINS with His very hands, spoke everything into creation into existence by His very breath. He literally. created. time. The Creator of time. Entered into His creation into a disgusting, grubby old smelly manger. To live the perfect life. And die a criminal’s death, bruised by the Father. Rising from the grave again, and giving me that same power to live within me. For the purpose of allowing me to stand holy and blameless on day of judgment.
That guy? I should be willing to renounce every earthly thing to serve Him. Because that is literally all that matters. Everything is pointless in the light of Christ.
