The Great Commission:
How did
Jesus Christ’s command to us get so screwed up?
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© 2015 by M.L. Wilson. All rights reserved. No part of this document or the
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Several months ago I wrote a commentary
titled, “Modern Christianity” which outlined much of my observations respecting
the abysmal state of the modern Christian faith movement today. While there are
many who will take exception with my use of the term, abysmal, I stand by it; the modern church is more an elite country
club than a place of true Christian fellowship and worship. It is because of
this inability to discern one’s true purpose as a Christian (not to mention a
Christian leader) we find the church in the chaotic state existing today. This
degradation of the church did not happen overnight, but its coming was foretold
in scripture and unfortunately ignored for generations …if not longer. Regretfully
we find ourselves not only waging a traditional battle against external forces
overtly opposed to Christ, but now also from within the supposed protection of
the Church as well.
Many of the issues I had raised in that
earlier commentary are going to be briefly revisited here. The need to do so is
quite unfortunate because I had hoped the first commentary would have resonated
enough so as to negate the need for any further explanation. Sadly based upon
events which have transpired since that first commentary was written, this has
turned out not to be the case.
As Christians, we find ourselves in a
very perilous time in history. At present, the West is still free enough to
where one can practice their faith with minimal resistance. As history has
shown, this period of tranquility will not last. Even as I write this
commentary, there are groups all about the world working to tamp down, or
remove free speech, couching such in terms of “offering reasonable protection” and “being non-offensive to all.” When free speech is removed, so is
the freedom to worship and practice one’s faith. Overnight, worshipping Christ
could become a felony resulting in a lengthy prison sentence. Anyone reading
this who scoffs does not know their history. It has happened in empires as
great in their time (if not greater) than the United States. The West is not
immune to the madness which has plagued other empires which have existed; we
will fall if we do not heed the failures of the past.
This is where the Church is vitally
important. A Christian represents the Light of God to the world. This
designation does not mean we can fix everything around us, but it does mean
that our goals are to reflect God’s will rather than our own. A servant does
what he is told to do, not what he desires to do. This is the place where the
Church is failing miserably. A church leadership which places a higher premium
on the further acquisition of wealth and power will not be terribly effective
in battling against the malevolent forces of the enemy. Ironically what such a
church leadership fails to see is that their quest for wealth and power is in
fact a tactic used by the enemy to
disempower them from their primary task: that of being the Light of Christ to
all mankind. We will not have this
window of opportunity amongst us much longer and far too many who have been
charged with leading their congregation into the Light of truth are instead
burying them in the lies of the flesh.
The world is at present roiling over
the obscenity which is Fundamentalist Islam. The attack in France against a
satirical magazine because they had the temerity to publish unflattering
cartoons about Islam, Muhammad and Allah was a very clear indicator of just
what evil looks like when left unchecked. Unfortunately we have a United States
President who is either too apathetic, or finds himself to ideologically
aligned with this Islamic enemy to take any substantive measures to stem their
encroachment into the West. While taking steps to do so is not the great
panacea many believe it would be, it is no less his responsibility as outlined
Constitutionally. This is an important concept to understand because Barack
Obama’s example of feckless leadership is reflected by the leadership in our
churches as they encounter their evil today.
In time, Islam will succeed in their
conquest as long as our leaders – both secular and religious – continue to lie
to the people in their care about this danger. We are sometimes led to expect
that politicians are (to a degree) going to play games with their allegiances
on the international stage. They are, after all, just politicians. A politician’s
primary allegiance is to themselves. Period.
However to see the same behavior from our church leadership, it is most
troublesome. We do not expect our pastors and Bible teachers to put themselves
first, yet that is exactly what we find repeatedly when we brush aside their
rhetoric and look at their actions. What do I mean by this? Let me explain.
I reside in a community which I suppose
is not unlike many other small communities all over the United States, if not
the Western world. This community where I reside has many churches, but sadly
few church leaders who are reflecting the Light of Christ to their congregation.
To be fair, there are some who do and I do not wish to demean or minimize their
efforts and hard, selfless work in this commentary. In fact if one is secure in
the knowledge that they are doing exactly what Christ has called them to do,
then this commentary is not meant for them. The rest would do well to put the
pride and ego aside and continue reading. It just may be that God has directed
your eyes to this commentary for that very reason.
The
calling to be a church leader is not a call to be taken lightly. It is a huge
responsibility to shepherd others into a correct and right relationship with
their Creator. The work will typically yield very little in the way of
tangible, earthly rewards as the goal is one of a spiritual nature. As this
type of church leader, one will find themselves in the enemy’s crosshairs; one
will become their primary target under such circumstances. However, the enemy
is also nothing if not a pragmatist. If a church leader presents no real threat
to them and their agenda, they will not attack the church leader. A church
leader who is focused on building their own career and acquiring wealth and
power will usually have to do so by crushing others under foot. The enemy likes
to encourage this type of behavior in church leaders because the ramifications
of such selfish actions resonate outward in ever increasing waves, destroying
more and more in its unyielding path. The enemy is well aware that a little
investment at the beginning will often yield huge results for them down the
road. At that point, the pastor or church leaders can easily be dispatched by
the enemy merely by stepping aside and allowing the light of truth to shine on
their now utterly corrupt lives. Few people recover from this type of attack
and soon realize the utter vanity of their lives.
I
suppose it is fair to ask of any reading this, “What is it to be a Christian?” The reason I pose that question is
because it seems that throughout the many centuries which have passed since Jesus
Christ ascended to Heaven, those of us remaining here on this earth have no
clear idea of the answer. Oh we think we do, but does thinking we know the
reason make it so? In order to be honest with a response one would need to
explore exactly what it is which Jesus Christ commanded of His followers … and
why. The answer one comes up with has a tremendous bearing on how one will
proceed with their belief and what they regard as God’s intent for their life.
That answer is the same whether one regards themselves as having been called to
the pastorate or not; we are all to be Lights to our fellow man.
I will start with the exact passage of
scripture which Christ imparted to His small band of Apostles just prior to his
ascension:
Then the eleven disciples went to
Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw Him,
they worshipped Him; but some doubted. The Jesus came to them and said, ‘All
authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have
commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the
age.’ - Matthew 28:16-20
I would like to just take a quick
moment to expand on the definition of certain words in this passage of
scripture so there is no misunderstanding. Those familiar with my commentaries
are well aware that I hold that there is but one Creator God Almighty; I do not
subscribe to the orthodox Trinitarian Godhead view as it allows for three
separate creators to exist, all with decidedly different means by which they will
deal with humanity. Christ was very clear when He declared, “If you really know me, you will know my
Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” (John
14:7), and “I and the Father are one.” (John
10:30) The “one” used in John 10:30 is rendered as just that in the Greek: Heis - One, singular. This concept needs
to be completely understood, or most the rest of this commentary will not make
much sense.
As I have explained in my commentary on
the Holy Trinity (which can be found here: http://thegodprinciplebook.blogspot.com/2014/03/theholy-trinity-when-did-we-split-god.html ), that Creator God Almighty chose a
discernible visage by which to communicate to us face to face was not only
reasonable given His essential construct which Paul describes as, “…who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen
or can see.” (1st Timothy 6:16), but necessary. If we in our
limited, corporeal human state cannot understand Creator God Almighty in His
natural state of being, then it is necessary for Him to choose a state by which
we can see and comprehend Him. This He did in the form of the Christ. Doing so does not make Jesus Christ out to be
something other than exactly what He is: the human presentation of Creator God
Almighty.
Similarly, the Holy Spirit – the pneuma in the Greek, is another
presentation of Creator God Almighty to us in our limited state. I have called
the Spirit “relational causality” because to me, that is exactly what it
is: The power of Creator God Almighty manifest through our relationship with
Him. Absent a relationship, there is no power thus, no attendant causality as a
result of that relationship.
Such thoughts and concepts about the
three presentations of Creator God Almighty towards His human creation tend to
make Christians raised on orthodox teaching very uneasy; fear of stepping out
into something unfamiliar takes immediate hold and binds them from seeking the
truth. Part of that truth is that most Christians raised on orthodox teaching
have never explored the scriptures or the nature of God for themselves. Too
many of them rely on pastors and teachers of scripture to tell them what to
think, never questioning the veracity of the many varied (and often wild)
versions of the “truth” which are
given to them as fact. This dearth of personal knowledge and understanding
creates a vacuum in the individual which must be filled with something. Either
truth will enter in, or error. Ultimately it is for the individual to decide
which is which, but I present my arguments in such a manner as to aid in that
decision.
Now that I have given a brief overview
of just who I believe Christ commanded his followers go forth and baptize
others and in whose name, we can proceed. In the first chapter of Acts, Christ
is about to ascend into Heaven and He gives his Apostles some last minute
information which is also meant for us.
He said to them: ‘It is not for you to
know the times or dates the Father has set by His own authority. But you will
receive power when the Holy Spirit (again,
Pneuma in Greek) comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all
Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ –
Acts 1:7-8
In the absence of the Christ in body,
He has given us a Himself through His Pneuma – His Spirit which through the strength of the relationship we as His
children have with Him, also gives us His power. This is a very important
concept which we as Christian need to understand. This power – this relational
causality – is extraordinarily powerful within the confines of this
relationship with Creator God Almighty. If it was not regarded as a necessary
component, Christ would not have explained it was coming, nor would he have
explained the power contained therein. But Christ did explain that it was
coming and that it was incredibly powerful.
So Christ has given us His marching
orders and He leaves, promising to replace his bodily presence with this vague
Pneuma, relational Causality, or Holy Spirit – whichever you prefer. On its
face, of what good is something so intangible and misunderstood that the early
church fathers did not even make it part of the Nicene Creed until 486 AD? Stop
and allow that information to sink in for a moment. Christ is thought to have
been crucified approximately 33 AD. (the exact year is a little vague because
of the manner in which the event was recorded so we’ll accept this approximate
date as adequate) Accepting what we would regard as the year 33 AD as the year
in which Christ gave this Great Commission and when He ascended into Heaven,
another four hundred and fifty-three years would pass before the Spirit was
finally accepted by the early church as legitimate. In this year of 2015, 453 years ago it was the
year 1562.
Here is what was going on in the world
453 years ago. There was no King James Bible as Queen Elizabeth was the
sovereign of the British Empire; the future King James was not yet born. 1562
saw the Council of Trent near its conclusion as a Catholic response to the
Protestant Reformation. It would be another 58 years before the first colony
would be established at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts. We look at these events
as ancient history, yet this is the exact same span of time the early church
fathers had to deal with respecting Christ’s ascension to Heaven – and they did
not have Google. Why did they struggle so with identifying exactly what the
Holy Spirit was if it had been made so clear from the outset? Moreover, given
the vacillation they struggled with over identification, why do we rely so much
on their conclusions over 1500 years after the fact? Are we so certain that the
2nd Nicene Council was correct? If so, then why was there the need
for a Reformation at all? If one holds to the notion that it was the Catholic
Church itself which had become corrupt, why not just return to the purity of
the 1st and 2nd Councils? If one is so steadfast in the
identification of the Holy Spirit as outlined by this council, then why is there
any need to split along the Protestant and Catholic lines? Would one not be
regarded as “parsing” scripture to fit a presupposition by choosing one side
over another, yet allowing major aspects of doctrine to remain untouched?
Of course the Protestant Reformation
had much more to do with individual national sovereignty than it had to do with
Biblical doctrine or dogma and I am aware of that fact. Regardless too many
present-day pastors and teachers on the Bible know so very little of their
subject matter that in any other profession, they would be shown the door
post-haste. Would one trust a financier with their life savings if he couldn’t
explain basic economic theory? Doubtful, yet isn’t that what we as Christians
do every single Sunday? Many of the issues I have raised in this commentary as
well as the history is completely unknown to the majority of seminary graduated
pastors; such information is irrelevant to their personal goals.
Why is it that we Christians care so
little for the truth? I realize how that question sounds, “What does he mean I don’t care about the truth! What gall!” I understand the irritation with the
statement I’ve made, but given the type of people we place in positions of
authority over our Spiritual relationship with Creator God Almighty, the naked
fact of the matter is we do not care too much for the truth. It seems we first care
mostly about feeling good about ourselves, and as a close second, what we can
get out of this relationship with God. Everything else – EVERYTHING – is subordinate
to these first two. If we can latch onto a pastor or church leader who can give
us those two thing (even if they must lie to us to do so), then our search is
over; no more truth need be given to screw up our perfect image. This isn’t a
new tactic by any means. Christianity, since the time of the formation of
orthodoxy under Constantine the Great, has been sold to people as a “Me first” religion. I like to refer to
Christianity as imparted to us through the lie of orthodoxy as the religion of Meism.
Because the Protestant Reformation did
not adequately address these errors laid down by the Ecumenical councils begun
with Constantine the Great in 325 AD, but rather merely focused on separating
the Catholic Church as the spiritual head over the various countries within its
Empire, too much erroneous doctrine was allowed to continue on without
impediment. Latter church leaders wrestled with the incongruities obvious
throughout this warped version of the “truth” as laid out by these early councils
and then validated by the impotence of the Protestant Reformers. Conclusions as
to the true nature of God and the nature of man were reached by an ever growing
list of these thinkers. From their rationalizations came Puritanism, the
Deists, Dispensationalism, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Adventism, et al. How
many lives were destroyed as we attempted to bend people to an unnatural
spiritual will, crushing them under these ever increasing complexities of
religious faith? Far too many, and often in grotesque and horrific ways.
However like their Catholic brethren,
these “new” religions took only small
nibbles from the edges of the monstrous doctrine of Meism and never really did much to assess the doctrine as a whole.
Thus though they believed they were creating an entirely new understanding of
who God is, they were really just playing a shell game with the same old parts
established under Constantine. Left intact in their “new religious understanding” was much of the old Catholic understanding;
the stern and wrathful Old Testament God, the enigmatic, ethereal Holy Spirit
and then the impotent, wraithlike figurehead of Christ: This comprised the unknowable
Holy Trinity. Also left untouched were the flaws in the belief that the
universe was only six to ten thousand years old, the concept of an eternal
Hell, and the inerrancy of scripture, and so on. Were any of these teachings
really present in what had been recorded by the Gospel accounts or the
Apostle’s epistles? No, but when we are led by erroneous presupposition, it
isn’t difficult to see why we have been taken so far off course.
Today, as in the centuries gone by,
religion is big business. It doesn’t matter if it is Christianity, Islam or some
other religion, the leadership has all figured out a way to sell humanity their
version of God to acquire wealth and power. The people who are commanded to
fill the pews in church with regularity lest they risk eternal damnation are now
merely marks, not people in need of a Christ-centered relationship. Yes, church
today is a business and those who run those businesses do not put up with much
foolishness such as truly reaching out the neediest within their sphere (regardless
whether or not they are church members) in order to help them. Too many church
leaders see such actions – unless specifically earmarked through a pre-arranged
benevolence fund – as a useless waste of precious resources.
The leaders of these businesses which
peddle God for cash like to point out how much schooling they have, like to
place themselves on a par with leaders in “secular”
businesses up to and including touting
the fiscal “bottom line” in annual
sales and like to compare the size of their congregations as a measure of their
success. The bigger the church and congregation, the more successful, the more
powerful and the more “godly” is the
church leader. How can one argue with that? One easily can if one is lead by
the Spirit.
Sadly and regretfully, the acquisition
of wealth, power and position is all these type of leaders are focused on. God
is merely the product they sell in order to achieve their goals. Because of
their ignorance of just who Jesus Christ is; because of their ignorance of just
who we as human beings are before God, they sell out their fellow man for 30
pieces of silver and do so over and over again. Too cynical an assessment you
say? Based upon the exceptionally sorry state of our churches today, I would
say that my assessment might be too lenient. We are beset with too many church
leaders who know nothing of their God, let alone the reason they are here on
this earth … and it shows.
Jesus Christ was very clear in His
admonition to those who chose to follow Him, “You will be hated by everyone because of Me…” (Matthew 10:22)
Large crowds were traveling with Jesus,
and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father
and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own
life—such a person cannot be my disciple.
And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my
disciple.”
“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower.
Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money
to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it,
everyone who sees it will ridicule you,
saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’
“Or suppose a king is about to go to
war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is
able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty
thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still
a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, those of you
who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.
“Salt is good, but if it loses its
saltiness, how can it be made salty again?
- Luke 14:25-34
The church today does not regard “counting the cost of being a disciple”
as a worthwhile endeavor because it places their lives and beliefs under the
harsh light of truth. Now exactly what is this truth which burns them under its
glare? This truth is that far too many of them answer to their flesh and not to
their spirit; too many within the church are indiscernible from those who do
not believe in Christ to the eyes of the world. These Christians fight and claw
at one another to gain a small scrap of real estate on this earth, ignoring the
fact that even if Christ does not return in their lifetimes, their lives are immeasurably
short regardless.
“Do you not know that the saints will
judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to
judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more
the things of this life!” –
1st Corinthians 6:3
Would one pay $10,000.00 for a concert
ticket to see their favorite band, front row center, but then yammer and talk
throughout the entire performance, missing the show? Of course not. $10,000.00
is a lot of money even for someone with wealth. One wouldn’t be so caviler
about wasting it. Yet everyday most of us do exactly that with a gift which
Christ tell us is priceless. We waste the small piece of time we have here on
this planet on selfish and worthless pursuits. In so doing, we usually cause
great harm to those to whom we are supposed to be reflecting the very Light of
God.
Pride
goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
- Proverbs 16:18
Pride and ego wreak much destruction on
humanity. It is interesting how many people would literally rather die than
admit they were wrong. Why is that? Why is admitting one was wrong such a
grievous act that one would rather die than face the truth? The answer is
really quite simple. When one is ruled by fear, one is never certain just who
they are. There is confusion and uncertainty. Absent a right spiritual
relationship with our Creator, the flesh takes over. Nature abhors a vacuum,
thus the void must be filled with something. But is the flesh an adequate
substitute for this spiritual void? Of course not. The flesh knows the flesh
and the spirit knows the spirit. One cannot possibly replace the other, but we
continually attempt to do just that.
So Pride and ego - components which are
natural to the flesh - take over and control the individual suffering this
spiritual void. Paul pointed out this danger in his letter to the Church at
Rome, “They exchanged the truth of God
for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator.” (Roman 1:25) Thus one proceeds upon this
false premise that through the flesh, this void is adequately filled. However
it is not and can never be. The flesh is not transcendent as is our spirit. We
make a very poor trade indeed when we allow the flesh to replace the spirit. When
we finally leave the body, what can we take with us if we’ve never nurtured the
spirit within?
Why is it that the church from the time
of Constantine has behaved in this manner? One could argue that prior to
Christ, all religions were false and following after the wrong god. Christ
points this out repeatedly throughout the Gospels when He speaks about entering
into a world in darkness. How could Christ come into a world of darkness if
Creator God Almighty was already present? However even if one holds to this
view, then where does that leave us as Christian in this present day? Are we to
continue to behave as though we exist in darkness?
No one lights a lamp and puts it in a
place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead he puts it on its
stand, so that those who come in may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of
your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But
when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that
the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of
light, and no part is dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the lamp
shines on you. – Luke 11:33-36
For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out
of the darkness,’ made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of
the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
-2nd
Corinthians 4:6
Being a Christian is no small endeavor.
Christ said that we would be hated, stalked, hunted down and even killed. Our
life here has one primary function as a Christian: To be a Light to our fellow
man. There is no other reason for us as Christians to be here. We are Christ’s
servants and this is what He has asked of us when we agreed to follow Him. Our
walk in this world is not about getting saved; that function could be performed
by only one being, and that being did His duty. What God desires of us in the
waning days of this present realm is to be His face to one another. Is that really so hard? Is such a request so
difficult that we simply refuse to do it? Evidently with this modern version of
Christianity, the answer is a resounding Yes.
When we discard our fellow man due to his appearance, class, ethnicity, sex,
even belief, we are staring straight into the face of Jesus Christ and telling
him to, “Screw off!”
God is love and the Apostle Paul stated
very eloquently, “If I speak in the
tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong
or a clanging cymbal.” – 1st Corinthians 13:1
Too often I allow my passions to get
away with me while I write these commentaries. I sometimes come across more
harshly than what I am feeling, but the feelings are no less real to me; I feel
very strongly about the subjects I write on. When I see good ministries
destroyed by small, petty people who have succumbed to pride and ego, I become
passionate. Such people rarely see themselves as the adversary they’ve become
because their entire teaching from the church has been to focus on Meism. How could one possibly recognize
the damage they’re doing to the Kingdom when their very pastors have been doing
nothing but teach them to destroy by example – by word and deed? Frankly, one
could not possibly see such error unless their heart is touched is some form or
fashion by the Spirit of God. Such pricking of the Spirit can come from some of
the most unlikely of places, hence this commentary.
I truly do believe that if one is
called to the pastorate, that Jesus Christ MUST be first in the called one’s
life. Gone are the individual pride and ego issues. Such are incompatible with
the job of leading others into the light. Sadly such an admonition is given
very little import in today’s seminaries. The result has been a corruption of
the church which will allow the enemy to gain the necessary foothold for the
coming change in the cosmological order; it will allow the Anti-Christ to
reign.
If our church leaders are so easily led
astray by their pride and ego, where does that leave the rest of the body? How
many times can we as individuals “church
hop,” in a vain attempt to find someone who possesses God’s heart before we
give up in discouragement altogether? This church
hopping is a growing trend in the church today. Part of it is apathy on the
part of people, part of it is the growing influence of the Internet, but a
large part of it is due to a lack of vision within the body and exceptionally poor
leadership.
I’ve written an earlier commentary on
what I believe we as Christians should do with our present day fixed
structures. (That commentary can be found here: http://thegodprinciplebook.blogspot.com/2014/01/is-church-building-or-peoplewithin-why.html ) However that is only a part of the
solution. The remaining part is that we must understand we are no longer our
own when we accept Christ. Again this isn’t about saving our soft little
behinds from the fires of Hell, but rather about giving ourselves to Christ in
servitude; to be His face to one another. We must stop practicing a religion of
Meism and start obeying Christ’s
admonition to make disciples (read Learned
Ones) of our fellow man. What makes anyone believe that are more deserving
of God’s love than someone else? To be a servant as Christ defined it is to
regard everyone else as better than themselves. Pride and ego simply cannot
flourish in such a garden.
If you are a pastor and are reading
this, you need to put your pride and ego aside and ruminate upon what I have
written. I am not a formally schooled theologian, but I have the same pedigree
as did Jesus Christ, the Apostle Peter, John and James. However even the
teachers and writers you may have studied in seminary had to have been taught
by someone who had no such formal schooling. No doubt you are familiar with the
writings of Marcion, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Origen. None would qualify for
leadership in your denominations today due to their lack of approved schooling,
yet you’ve (hopefully) studied them. For God’s sake, why given their lack of
formal training?
Instead, most of you have latched
firmly onto a theory which has no Biblical basis in fact whatsoever called
Dispensationalism and the Rapture. You teach these doctrines as though they were
spoken by the mouth of Christ Himself, yet not a shred can be found to buttress
your claims. What causes you to be so dogmatic and bunkered in your thinking? “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched
you?” Is it fear? Is it ignorance? Could it be mere simple pride which
causes you to refuse to acknowledge that God often times uses the least likely
amongst us to be His font of truth? Ah yes, that is a bitter pill to swallow
indeed.
As pastors, you need to do some deep,
prayerful contemplation as to just who you are before Creator God Almighty. He
does not care a whit about your position before men. He does not care a whit
about your pride or your ego. He does care about you deliberately dimming your
light to your fellow man in order that your pride and ego can shine more
brightly. Such is as filthy rags before him.
As a Christian, one must make similar
prayerful contemplations about who they are before Creator God Almighty. Our
time here on the earth is very, very short. Soon we will all come to that
moment where we will close our eyes for the last time. When that moment comes,
there is no going back to “fix”
anything; your time in this realm is concluded. What you created on earth will
be what you will take with you to set before the feet of your Creator. At that
moment, will the church golf outing you organized, but which excluded many
hurting men in your congregation who could not afford the fees seem a
worthwhile endeavor? Will excluding women in your congregation from the annual
Ladies Retreat because they do not have the means financially or have help to
watch their children bring anyone of you closer to being the Light of Christ? Will
turning away the poor and bedraggled because they “smelled” be regarded as the
act of a righteous servant of God? Will
channeling more and more of needed funds to yet another church building be
regarded as good stewardship with the tithes given by many in your congregation
who frankly cannot afford to do so, but obeyed God regardless? Will ignoring
the holocaust that is abortion in your community because it is too hot a
political topic be seen as courageous?
Each and every one of the above
scenarios – and countless others I haven’t listed – can be remedied if we as
the church actually bow our knees before Creator God Almighty, become the
servants He desires us to be, and get rid of our useless pride and ego. One simply
cannot read Proverbs 16:18 and think it cannot possibly apply to them; one
would have to be lying to themselves.
Choose this day whom you will serve.
Either it is Creator God Almighty, or it is the flesh. One cannot serve both
God and mammon; one has to choose. Both have a cost, but only one promises an
eternal reward. How foolish is the one who chooses unwisely?
