I’ve started reading a new book and the author starts out the book by saying stood before 20 thousand bible college graduates and asked how many of them have read the New Testament and feel like we as the church have missed the point entirely… he said nearly every hand went up. I’ve agreed with this a long time, yet I just started to believe in my heart that I truly agreed to it.
For the longest time in my life I have understood the message of the gospel and thought I really had a grasp on what I was reading, and yet all I can say is I know what the specific words on the page mean, but I’ve missed the message entirely…
If this were an “AA” type of class, I would stand up right now and say “Hi, I’m Todd, and I’m an evangelical believer in the prosperity church”. Before you make your assumption about what I’m talking about, put your brain in neutral…”HOLD PLEASE”. I don’t attend a large denominational church where a large number of constituents are listening by radio and are sending money and checks to some pastor with combed cotton candy hair who is frothing at the mouth as he preaches about healing and wealth, but I AM involved with a large group of folks in our nation who associate themselves with the church and a fine family and blue suits and sedans and nice homes in a suburban area and great friends who gather for lavish meals and we get together to “fellowship and share” and the topic of discussion is either the style of clothing we saw being worn at church on Sunday or the sad state of affairs that this couple’s marriage is in and “bless their hearts” or other topics. When did we miss the call? I realize this week as I have walked that God’s greatest desire is for me to be like his son Jesus, to be baptized into his sufferings and share the inheritance in Heaven.
I made the decision this week that our sufferings (no matter what form they come) are meant for one thing… to create the nature of the Father’s love in our hearts. I, like many of you, have ignored these sufferings and pointed a finger at EVERYONE else and said it’s someone else who has hurt me, when I should stop, realize that the reason I’m in this place, be it unemployment, struggling in a horrible job, trying to survive a horrific marriage with an outward view of peace and love towards others so we can save face, to know that no matter how hard I work, I’ll never be able to conquer the demon of my life of alcohol or tobacco, or abuse of whatever kind… no matter WHAT we struggle with, is because he is trying to drive out the impurity in our lives and he is using the mundane things of this life to carve away the pieces that don’t look like him. We blindly live in a state of denial and belief if we deny it long enough… the pain will vanish and we will eventually live in bliss. What if we turn into the direction of our suffering and say “be it unto me as you have said, Lord”? With obedience and grace we would stagger towards the truth that we need counseling, or help for our addiction, or forgiveness for our anger we have held against others. Maybe we aren’t meant to be a great business person, maybe we’ll not be a wealthy person, or someone who has an amazing marriage? What if God’s desires aren’t our desires? What if we simply succumb to the idea that our frustrations for the way things have been going is simply Him trying to get us to see he has a better way?
The gospels call us to lay our desires down, and die with him. Death to not only our sin, but our selfish vain desires, to a life of our own choosing and to realize he has no other no other greater purpose in our life but to glorify himself through us as we become obedient.
No matter the circumstances God is using to dust off the seat of your pants to keep you from going completely into destruction, he loves us for who HE IS in us. All things work together for the glory and edification of his purposes. We may not see it today, we may not see it next year, but one day we’ll thank him for explaining why we aren’t wealthy, or why we will have to remain single or why we never achieved the dream we so vainly dreamed of or whatever. God has higher purposes for our lives. When we obey our hearts only, we find ourselves in that place of going around ANOTHER mountain. But just imagine if we stopped and asked him what he desired for us and then began to not walk, but run into the direction of our own cross…
This morning in church God told me he desires to give us HIS perspective… and for us to see why we are going through our struggles. While this was going on… a song was playing and the words echoed in my ear… “at the cross he… beckons me..” God gently calls us to come and die…like a gentleman.. he never forces us…but in a gentle effort to give up willingly…
God have mercy on us to hear him… and to walk willingly to the place in our life of our own cross… cause if you remember? The church never came into existence UNTIL Jesus went willingly to HIS cross… when it was finished? Well? That’s when it all began…
