Pergamum...the battle for the mind. Isn't that where we find ourselves today? Bombarded with commercials, web ads, billboards, and lectures from professors and even pastors. People or companies are daily telling us how we should act, what we should wear, how we should look or some four step plan to get closer to God.
"It is the ideas that come to us wrapped in religious language which are more difficult to spot and resist."p77
This is what worries me. So many times people tell us what to believe or think, even on theology. But, what does Jesus think? What do the Scriptures say? Have we really read them? Have we really sought Him out? Or have we taken them for granted? These types of people can make us comfortable in church. I read this allegory about "The King's Army" In it the enemy put up a screen around the King's camp so they couldn't see the desert/nothingness around them. Because they couldn't see there was fear. They became comfortable in the camp and fearful to leave it. This is where I see the American church. Wrapped in religious language it's OK to have the nice car and big house, it's taking care of your family and being a good stuart, but do we see that in the Scriptures? I find them to say " be generous, bless others, and store up heavenly treasures."
What other tables have we dined at? Money? School? Grades? Family? Pornography? Our own table? Image? Status? Ministry Success? All are nothing in comparison the the LORD. I really liked this quote:
"Here Jesus presents himself as passionately intolerant. Why? Because he loves the truth, he speak the truth, he is the truth. And because, as he claims elsewhere, falsehood and deception of any kind enslaves people. Jesus is passionately intolerant because his is passionately intolerant of people being enslaved." p. 79
How many of us walk around in chains? Enslaved to lies, enslaved to the other tables we dine at or the compromises we make? We may take them off to come to church, or perhaps come to church in them. But, we choose to walk around in chains when we have already been set FREE! As Darrell says in another book "We don't know what to pray for, instead of praying for freedom, we pray for a carpet for our prison cell." WE HAVE BEEN SET FREE! And we should live as such, free people. Jesus hates when his people are enslaved.
To go with the Bridegroom analogy. Christ has got a beautiful white wedding dress for His bride. Having made compromises and dined at other tables, we say "Jesus, that dress is too nice for me...I don't deserve it, I'm not good enough."
Our Savior says, "But, child, I bought this dress for you. I paid for it with my blood. And it fits you perfectly." The dress has been bought and paid for. Yet so many times we choose to walk around in rags and leave the dress in the closet. (Potts)
Truth is the reality. A reality where affirmations are the norm not once a week. Where prayer for your friends and strangers is a multiple time a day activity. Where money is given away, where the unlovable are lovable. Where ministry is life. This is the reality I long for, I strive for and I'm walking in. This study and many other factors over the past couple years I have come to see Jesus in new light, have a new passion and "FIRST LOVE" for Him.
Amen, Nolan. A-freakin'-men!
ReplyDeleteI, too, loved what DJ had to say about Jesus' passionate intolerance. We never signed up for a gospel of tolerance with this whole Jesus thing! A God who does not passionately hate sin is no God at all. A Jesus who is not pure and holy and who does not fight for all that is pure and holy is not a Jesus worth following!
Well said, my friend.
Praying for each of us to find the courage to "return" the Persian rug in our prison cells and embrace instead the freedom that is ours for the taking!
Thanks for sharing this post Nolan. The banquet of grace is most richly celebrated in the highways and byways among the last and the least. I have moments where I feel like I am serving the banquet with the heart of God but they are too few and far between. I need to be more spiritually minded because like your post infers after decades serving the institutional church, I'm for the most part a meat head. As a meat head/bone head I am intimidated by the passionate indifference of Christ because my heart is so often a far cry from being an outpost of glory for His holy kingdom come. I guess you could say my temple is more often than not a mess and as your post supports (in my brain at least it supports), Christ still clears out his temple which is disconcerting but good and necessary.
ReplyDeleteWhoops - "passionate intolerance" not "passionate indifference." Passionate indifference is like saying "dark light" or "Emaciated fullness.". Definitely as my 4 year old would say a whoopsy daisy."
ReplyDelete