Don't Advertise Your Fears

We do have a lot of funny wee traditions as Christians. Most of them have to do with small fears and the stress of everyday living. Real maturity becomes evident when we don’t feel the need to speak out our fears in the guise of prayers.

Paul informs the superstitious Greeks that God is not far from us. “In Him we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:26-28. That being so, if we have a relationship with Him, nothing should surprise us; our days should be filled with small miracles as promised in Romans 8:28 “all things work together for good.”

The walk of faith is a daily adventure and our expectations should not be limited by fear or anxiety for the outcome of things. We declare our intentions to walk close to Him every morning when we commit our day to Him. Praying and feeding in the Word can become as natural as our breakfast cereal when we expect God’s best.

I remember a youth excursion once when a person stopped us all from jumping in our cars to drive to a country location: “Let’s all pray for travelling Mercies” they said and then prayed out from their fear of accidents. That same person actually had an accident on the way and ended up in hospital. When we speak out our fears we make room for the enemy. “Don’t tell the Devil your level!” Speak out your expectation of good for the day and rest in the results.

Being the Outside Expert

Sometimes, I’ve been invited to speak in other churches. They seem to respect my advice on matters in a way that can even seem embarrassing. Afterwards, a frustrated leader or Pastor tells me they had been saying something similar for a long time, but the congregation and leadership seemed reluctant to listen. But now that they invite me to share my views, suddenly they’re interested. Most managers or leaders have experienced this from both sides and understand the frustration. Often, it really does seem that an outside expert has great persuasive powers.

But the concept is explained in the Bible. In discussing how we as Christians are to relate to others, Jesus used the illustration of salt in Matthew 5:13: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.”

Salt has the ability to ‘season’ things. In ancient days, salt was the best preservative available, and to keep meat from rotting, salt had to be rubbed in.  But one important element of salt is how different it is from the meat. To change something, you have to be different from what you’re trying to change.

After a long time within any organization, most people seem to lose their saltiness; their unique or impartial perspective and authority. Human nature being what it is, others don’t take advice as often from inside people because they seem to be like part of the problem they are trying to solve.  That’s why we are open to outside advice; it does bring a fresh perspective.

Salt changes things because it’s not like what it’s trying to change. Certainly being different in your views, will not always be appreciated, but it does mean you offer different ideas. To become ‘salty’ again we need to step outside of things and become renewed in our thinking. Holding the same old views means we have little to no impact on the way things are.

The Myth of Freedom

Ephesians 2:1-10: talks about being formally dead and living in the various and passing lusts of our mind and body. Gladly, we have been made alive in Christ, an act of grace.

 

It is true that we have sometimes as believers we have indulged the desires of the flesh and mind. We have set goals for ourselves that God did not give us. We have longed for things and when we finally achieved them they proved to be a disappointment that we could hardly admit. They fell so easily from our grasp like a child with a new plastic toy on Christmas day. But many of us have grown up in our understanding; we have realised that while we are amazingly objective and resourceful people who can achieve goals that we have desired for ourselves, we know they can hurt us.

 

All believers are called to a separated life; taking the things of God seriously without becoming overly religious. Our young need good modelling to avoid the moral confusion and shallow excitement exhibited by those who are impressed by the ‘bread and circuses’ of secular culture.

 

Jesus also had to learn to live a separated life: Hebrews 5:8 “Although he was already a mature son, he learned obedience through the things which he suffered” Jesus models the primary skill for us: Obedience. This raises the a question, do we obey God because of Hellfire or because He is always right? It is best to obey God because He is God.

 

Leviticus 20:22-27:  ‘You are therefore to keep all My statutes and all My ordinances and do them, so that the land to which I am bringing you to live will not spew you out.  Moreover, you shall not follow the customs of the nation which I will drive out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I have abhorred them. ²⁴ Hence I have said to you, “You are to possess their land, and I myself will give it to you to possess it, a land flowing with milk and honey.” I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples.”

 

Even the land cannot tolerate Canaanite practices that reflected total depravity. As long as we set our own standards of human behaviour and make our foolish laws, we descend into the same level of Depravity that invited annihilation such as Canaanites suffered. The progress has begun and while we may bring restraint to society as believers, we cannot ultimately stop it.

 

In every issue we face there is right and wrong but things are only right because God says they are right. Ecclesiastes 10:2: “A wise man’s heart directs him toward (what is) right, but the foolish man’s heart directs him toward (what is)left.” Society has clearly rejected Gods concept of right and wrong. Society’s notions of ‘good and right’ are due to what has become “a cultural memory of good” based on how we understood things 120 years ago. (Darwin etc and so-called ‘enlightenment ‘came and existential humanism arose ) Expressing ‘cultural memory’ a different way, we could say that fruit does not wither immediately once the branch has been cut-off. The fact is that 120 years ago we cut the tree down so new fruit will not grow in human society outside of the Church. Our Jails are full, crime of every sort and destruction is increasing at a furious pace.

 

Yet strangely despite all of these facts, the notion and concept of ‘freedom’ is espoused as if this were the means to mankind’s salvation. It requires an acceptance of total selfishness. “One must throw-off every constraint until total autonomy is achieved.” In the words of worldly philosophers: “To be totally free you must see yourself as no more important than a blade of grass.” One ‘existentialist’ philosopher wrote that “falsehood, bondage and irrationality are essential truths of freedom.” He advocated schizophrenia as a way to achieve this state of human bliss and oblivion. He probably became one.

 

This philosophy has infected humankind to the degree that people have a continuous sense of futility and hopelessness. Everything is temporary and short term. People are now fooled by shallow imitations that will crumble to dust in a few years. ‘Leadless solder’ will guarantee we need to replace electronic devices within 6-8 years. Nothing can be trusted yet people are enamoured with a shallow culture of temporary benefits.

 

The only constant during the last 2000 years in Human Society has been individual believers meeting in simple groups to fight for and maintain the truths we now have. Their worship and attitude has been like most bible-believing Christians today. They like you and I, have found true freedom in submission to Jesus Christ as our Lord.  John 8:36
“So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

 

Where does the Church go from here? Throughout the Churches history, wrong concepts of leadership have driven believers into following populist views and submitting to the demands of loyalty to manmade organizations. Yet many believers have recognized the failures of existing movements and have ultimately created yet more movements out of reaction. It is as though we are searching for the right way to worship and the right environment and style of ‘message.’
I believe that in the near future we are going to have to simplify. Big churches will become dangerous. This week Obama has outlawed bibles and any other Christian religious items in USA military hospitals. Our weak politicians tow the American line now. What’s next? Watch this space. 
 

Where is the Church at Now?

The history of the Church is very subjective and influenced by our own religious experiences and prejudices.  However, it is a means for us to see where we have come from. Where we are going is a different matter because church history demonstrates that God Himself has intervened in the affairs of mankind from time to time in sovereign ways. (Consider Genesis 11:4-7 the tower of Babel) These interruptions have added great