I recently received an add for Bible Study material entitled "How Do You Explain Christianity?" Immediately I thought "I don't want to, have to, or know how to explain Christianity. Christianity, in the broad term, has been very fluid through the ages, and especially in today's culture. Even this last month there was a conference that tried to define Christianity by attacking another denomination of Christianity, which I find completely shameful. To try to explain Christianity in light of all its history, both good and bad, would take more than a 10 week Bible study. It would take more like a 2 year intensive study.
The answer to that question is simple. I don't explain Christianity! I explain Christ. There is a vast difference between deciding if you want to be part of the movement labeled "Christianity" or if you want to be part of Christ Himself. If I had based my decision to marry my husband on knowing about his entire family, I wouldn't have married him. Honestly, I love his family now because I know and understand them (31 years of marriage will do that), but had I taken into account that upon meeting me his brother would punch me in the stomach, had I known that one of his aunts would constantly write me letters begging me to stop cutting my hair and wearing jeans because it would send me to hell, or that his grandparents would show up on our doorstep just 13 hours after we were married to have my husband collect horse poop to put on their cucumbers when I had lived not 5 minutes from them for 6 months, or a myriad of other strange happenings that have occurred through the years, I might have reconsidered--and oh what I would have missed! You all know how hopelessly in love with my husband I am! He is my morning, noon and night as far as people are concerned. His is kind, loving, compassionate, dedicated, faithful, dependable, funny, considerate....well you get the picture...not to mention how extraordinarily handsome he is! (Hey, if you think the man you are going to marry is ugly, please don't marry him. He isn't going to improve.) I didn't marry my husband because of who his family was but because of who HE is. I just learned to love and get along with his family as time passed. (It really wasn't all that hard. His family is great barring a few oddballs but hey, you have that in any family! In fact, in my family, I probably AM the oddball! LOL!) I always tell people "he's not perfect, but he's perfect for me!"
When people asked me why I wanted to marry my husband, I could go on and on and on about all his wonderful qualities because I knew Him so well and I loved what I knew. So when people ask me why I do or don't do things, why I think the way I think, why I don't react the way most people react to things, why I go to church, or why I am a Christian, I don't even say the word "Christianity". I simply tell them about the man Jesus Christ who I met 30 years ago and who captured my heart because He is so extraordinary. I can go on and on about Him any time, any day. He is my morning, noon and night as far as ANYTHING is concerned. He outshines it ALL! Explaining his family, with all their quirks and differences and sometimes shameful behavior...well I can't explain it, but through time I have come to love His family just the same because I love Him and I love what He loves because Christ is perfect in EVERY way and He's perfect for every person!
So...alas...another advertisement that I won't be biting at.
This was the title of an article I read lately. Next to the one on why it's okay for Christians to listen to secular music and why tattoos are not sinful, this was the stupidest article I've read all year! My first reaction after reading this was to yell "Church isn't supposed to fit most people, you idiot! We're supposed to fit the church!" And we can only fit the church if we've been conformed through regeneration, justification, and sanctification! Oh, pardon me! I'm not supposed to use those "religious words", because they don't fit most people who don't go to church, nor do they fit many who do! Sadly! What most don't realize is that we are not to be squeezed into the world's mold, especially in the church. We are to be transformed (remember transformers? They go from looking like one thing to something completely different?) into the image of Christ. This is what makes us "fit" into the church!!!
Doesn't scripture tell us that the path that leads to righteousness is narrow and FEW there be that find it? We have gone totally off the cliff, changing church to fit sinners instead of providing a way for sinners to be changed so that they fit into the Kingdom! Just getting their butts to church and filling them with religious information is no good. There has to be a supernatural birth, a change in nature, a new way of thinking that affects the mind, the will, the emotions and the desires! This is how it has always been until the seeker sensitive movement. What level of arrogance does it take to ditch all the great soul winners of years gone by? Did they not know what they were talking about? Has the gospel changed? Has God changed? Did Jesus not foresee what would move men to repentance when he walked on this earth? Has human nature changed? Has sin changed? So why, do we think that we have to come up with new "methods" to win the lost? It's this total disregard for the holiness of God and catering to sinners that has caused this line of thinking. Unfortunately we have sacrificed the message for the method, making the method totally ineffective because it is devoid of the power of God.
Instead of telling people that they must conform to the image of Christ, which can only happen when they are born again, we are now re-shaping God to fit sinners. And anyone who speaks this way is called "religious, old fashioned, and out of touch." Jesus also spoke of religion. He never once denounced true religion. He only denounced false religion. In fact, the very religious leaders he often scolded, he commended for their religion. We have stretched and chopped the image of God to such a point, God is no longer involved in our religion because we no longer represent him correctly to a dying world. We care more about what sinners think of God than we care about who God really is-as if we have to somehow make God more appealing than He already is . He saw us in our depraved state, sacrificed His only, perfect, spotless Son like a lamb led to slaughter, raised Him from the dead so that we could be become children of God instead of children of wrath. In light of what we are guilty of and what the penalty of it is, that is quite enough to reveal the heart of God for mankind and more than enough to make us fall down in repentance and worship. But people don't! Why???
By making God fit us, we are saying that we are okay and don't need to change. This defies the very idea that we were desperately lost without the cross, so there was really no need for Jesus to die. Our sins have become mistakes, diseases, syndromes, and "oopsies". God's holiness has been blurred and clouded by making Him our buddy, our Papa God, and by telling people that because He understands, He will overlook our sin. How insulting to the Blood of our Savior this is!!! If sin is serious enough to cost God and Christ what it cost, then we should know how serious it is in our lives! Nothing about sin has changed! It's still abominable in God's sight! He hates it! If it took resurrection power to overcome, then we can know that Resurrection power is available for us so that we can live as Christ lived on this earth.
Folks, we must face facts. The church in America is by in large nothing more than a social organization. We have assimilated sinners into our culture, tainting it and chasing the Holy Spirit from the place He should be occupying. Until we are willing to do things God's way, God has no obligation to respond. Hell is full of good intentions but if good intentions are born of arrogance, they are nothing more than wood, hay and stubble.
As I checked my email this morning, I got one from Amazon with some new book deals that are available. The email included a section that said, "Based on previous purchases, here are some recommendations you might enjoy." The list was pretty normal for me and included the following....."The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness by Timothy Kellar, The Busy Mom's Guide to Stress Free Organization, How To Blog for Profit Without Losing Your Soul, 30 Delicious Cake Recipes, Understanding Quantum Physics: An Advanced Guide for the Perplexed.....WAIT! WHAT????
As all of my friends know, I am not a math student! I barely passed Algebra in college and because of an oversight was never required to take any more math to graduate! (God's mercy at work!) This made me laugh hysterically since I've never had a day of physics in my life other than what they managed to sneak into my other math courses and whatever you may or may not use physics for in daily life! Honestly, I've been perplexed about some things lately, but quantum physics isn't one of them!
For instance yesterday I was perplexed when I decided to wear the 1 bra I have left that has both under-wires completely in tact. Frankly I was tired of being poked all day! I do rotate them so I'm never poked the same place for more than one day at a time--is that considered using physics? Anyway, I got dressed and walked to my car. Just as I plopped down on the driver's seat, I heard SNAP! Yep, you guessed it. I now have no bras with two totally intact under-wires. What perplexed me is that there is certainly not enough pressure on any of those under-wires to warrant them snapping! I am a charter member of the itty bitty club so why these things snap is a total mystery to me- probably because I don't understand quantum physics.
I'm perplexed about why my youngest son would paint his body all different colors from the waist up and adorn himself with an array of necklaces that glow that have been pushed through 5 inch Styrofoam cones and dance his way through the high school homecoming parade in front of the whole town. No, he wasn't part of a group, or on a float. This was just something he and a friend came up with because they got tired of tying each other to chairs in the garage and throwing balls in their stomachs to see how many or how hard a ball it takes to get them to ask for mercy. THAT perplexes me and probably is something I would understand if I understood quantum physics because quite frankly, no other subject that I studied anywhere, EVER can explain that to me.
There are many other things that perplex me-why two people with no children who work 60 hour work weeks need a million dollar house with 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms because they are never there to enjoy it. I doubt they even use all three bathroom in the space of a week but they pay a cleaning lady to clean them; the people who work within the beltway in Washington DC perplex and sometimes infuriate me; the stupid, senseless things that people blog about like overpriced items at garage sales, how many starbursts they ate in a day, or the price of toilet paper at Wal-mart--for heaven's sake, move on and get a life. Of course, I could include this blog in that list as well, but hey, we all should get one senseless rambling opportunity every now and then. I believe that must be part of what you learn in quantum physics. I've never been to a physics class, as I said, but there is an awful lot of mindless, illogical, senseless rambling that goes on in university classes and those people have all had quantum physics.
There are many, many things about God that perplex...and inspire...and cause me to stand in awe...and folks...that even quantum physics can't explain like His majesty, His perfection, His power, His wisdom, His mercy, His modes of operation- so why would I want to buy a book about quantum physics? I'm sure that if there is anything about quantum physics that I need to understand, God will reveal it to me in a way that won't perplex me.
Sorry Amazon, you didn't sell me anything today.