Light Side & Dark Side In An Upside-Down World

I have noticed a peculiar mindset in many Christians of late - the mindset that in order to reach the world we should be as much like the world as possible and still "be saved". We are allowed to look like the world, talk like the world, tell the same jokes, browse the same images, laugh at the same entertainment, read the same books, have the same habits.  


"Good enough" is good enough for us. Forget sold out. Forget set-apart. Forget holy consecration. We don't, after all, want to make Christianity uncomfortable for the modern-day sinner.  Let them slide easily into church life without jolting them from sinful mindsets. Let them enter into this sacred fellowship with Christ's Bride while still partially clothed in filthy rags of worldly lifestyle.


But I ask, is the Church a club to enter and Christianity a badge that proves your membership? Or is the Church a new family, Christianity a description of your life, and Christ's blood your new identifying feature?

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." -2 Corinthians 5:17

Are we helping people to excuse worldliness or are we harming them? Are we walking so close to the edge ourselves that those who follow us are likely to slip over the edge?


What I think we have forgotten, when we excuse worldliness, is that the world's system is what has destroyed these people we want to reach. It is that lifestyle that has wounded, broken, scarred them. It is that mindset that has torn apart their relationships and left them with memories they'd rather forget. It is the world that bruised and left them for dead by the roadway. What the guilty soul truly wants is not acceptance of their current life, but forgiveness and hope for a new identity.  What the guilty soul needs is the blood of Christ that washes sins, grace that enables them to change, and instruction in righteousness that will preserve them from Hell's flames.


And so, what does this mean for us? We who would preach Christ must preach holiness. We who would preach holiness must live holiness. If you need an example, consider Jesus. Always among sinners, yet never sinful. When he walked into a room He did not become like the people there, He compelled the people there to become like Him. 

“Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.'" -Leviticus 19:2

Where are the people that will serve their God with a pure heart? Where are the Daniels? Where are the Joshuas and Calebs? Where are the Davids? The Pauls? Where is the generation of promise that will change the course of nations and cultures? Where are those with white-hot purity, with fiery consecration, and fierce convictions?  


This generation is tired of those who dabble in religion or profess a Christianity they will not sell out for. Stand in righteousness...even if you must stand alone in righteousness...and see if you will affect change right where you are.

“Catch on fire and others will come for miles to watch you burn.” -John Wesley

Coming tomorrow...a examination of convictions. Where to get them and why your convictions are vital. 

Four Kinds of Christians...Which Are You?

The Bible likens the local church to a body - a body of which Christ is the head and we, the Christians, are all members.
The beauty of any body is the perfect connectivity every member has with each other through a common blood and the way each member functions at the direction of the head.  In the same way the Body of Christ is united through the Blood of Jesus, by which we have been made holy and able to enter into correct fellowship.  Each Christian is connected to other members and moves as commanded by the Head...or at least they should...

I was thinking this afternoon about the many different types of people I have met in churches over the years. The good, the bad, and the ugly are out in force in any given congregation. Some churches seems to attract more of the good, some more the bad and ugly.

I created analogies for some of the different types I have observed:

The Clothing Christians:
These are the people who look like they are connected but aren’t. They are like the clothes on your back – they look like they belong with the body, but aren’t a true member. These are the pew fillers, the event stuffers, the adornment that make the church look good and big…but they are never truly connected. They can get old, worn out, full of holes. They have no ability to reproduce themselves. They do neither harm nor good and when they are leave, it’s like changing outfits, no one really notices and the Body remains unaffected.

The Cancer Christians:
These are the life suckers of the Church. They are created, not through proper body development, but are the result of a problem or issue. These are the wolves among the sheep. They can be nearly undetectable until they are too big to get rid of easily…and usually when they go they take the members they have poisoned with them. They are a growth on the Body, but refuse to be controlled by the Head or the immune system.

The Creepy Christians:
I tried to find an analogy for someone who was connected to the head but not the Body and discovered something interesting…it can’t be done! To be truly, vitally connected to the Head, one has to be a part of the Body. The Head and the Body go together…always. You cannot find one without the other, unless it be the a grave or the scene of a horrible crime. It is creepy and morbid to try to place a head on anything but a body and the head refuses to send brain waves to any other object except the body.
Bill Scheidler says, “The only way [a part] can properly function is to be rightly related to the whole” ("The New Testament Church and it's Ministries" page 63). Only creepy “Christians” (imposters!) will attempt to connect the head to themselves without the rest of the Body. God has specially designed His Body in such a way that no one can be in relationship to Him without becoming part of what He loves the most – the Church. He refuses them any notice, time, or life sustenance.

The Connected Christians:
These are the kind of people that I want to be, strive to be, and choose to be like. Correctly connected, in perfect function, to both the head and the other members, they complete the beauty of the Body. These people know their place, love their place and listen to the Head. They are covered with the same immune system, feel by the same nervous system, and are of one mind with everyone else – because they are of Christ’s mind! They are alive and reproducing, and to sever them from the Body would result in the same disablement and pain as amputating a limb. They are Body builders!

Which kind are you?

Love

My Lesson for Today:
Give everything
Expect nothing
Let forgiveness know no bounds


In the Bible I read that if I don’t love the Body of Christ I cannot say I love Christ. It sounds so easy, this loving the Church.
It is easy until there is a breach in relationship with one person and I find it easier to withdraw my heart than to willingly sacrifice it on the altar of forgiveness.

1John 2:7-11
“ Dear friends, I am not writing a new commandment for you; rather it is an old one you have had from the very beginning. This old commandment—to love one another—is the same message you heard before.
Yet it is also new. Jesus lived the truth of this commandment, and you also are living it. For the darkness is disappearing, and the true light is already shining.
If anyone claims, "I am living in the light," but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is still living in darkness.
Anyone who loves another brother or sister is living in the light and does not cause others to stumble.
But anyone who hates another brother or sister is still living and walking in darkness. Such a person does not know the way to go, having been blinded by the darkness."

If I love part of the Body, I have to love the whole and not exclude any member. If I love the whole that must be unfailingly else it is not really love at all because “love never fails”.

Who am I to withhold my love? Was it ever mine to monopolize? Did I originate it? Is my love not just borrowed from the One who loved me first? How selfish I am to grasp the gift of God so tightly in my fists! How ignorant I am to refuse to share it as He commanded.

To love is never easy…see, the thing about love is that it must consume. The thing that fuels love is the offering of my selfish desires to be burned. Love and selfishness are a sorry pair – they can never coexist. Love will always be determined to consume the selfishness and selfishness always desires to quench the fire of love. Love, true love, requires me to die that God might live His love through me.