TRACTION, BATHWATER, SCORPIONS AND GOD’S GOOD PLEASURE (FOUR RELATED THOUGHTS)

Traction with God is not a matter of “Doing” but rather “Being.”  We think Doing, working, advancing the Kingdom stuff is the glue in our relationship with the God we love to pretend we love. But God calls us to Be so that we can Do, not to Do so that we can Be. It’s all about Being, Being in the Beloved... Being in Christ... for in Being we find our new life in Him. If we will just Be in Christ at home, at work, in the marketplace... all the time, the Doing will take care of itself. We simply cannot hide Christ if we are in Him and He is in us. We can Do without Being -- Ishmael works abound as attested to by Uzzah -- but we can’t Be without Doing.

“God does whatever He pleases”: We allegorize scriptures and our experiences with unwarranted spiritual “spin” creating supposition to explain God when He doesn’t do what our theology says He should be doing. What accords with His will and brings satisfaction to His heart... God simply does, not because of anything we do, and often in spite of what we do, and regardless of our attempts to influence and coerced... God simply does of His good pleasure... He does! Signs, wonders, miracles, healings... power manifested, are gifts of grace apportioned to each person individually, if, when and how the Holy Spirit chooses. God manifests purposefully, viewing our desires through the lens of His divine perspective... some pressure here... a blessing there, shaping, always shaping! Maybe we should fact-check our “theology”, like the Bereans!

The danger of being Cold is eternal damnation. The danger of being Lukewarm is the loss of our first love. The danger of being Hot is drinking one’s own bathwater. Hot “on fire” Christians can so want God to manifest in particular ways they subjectively interpret scriptures and experiences spinning spiritualized explanations why God isn’t doing what they “think” He has promised to do. We need to focus on Transformation, nailing Self to the Cross so the Christlife within can emerge, and let God manage the divine encounters, be they signs, miracles or goose-bumps. God jumps into our sandbox whenever and however He chooses... purposefully doing, or not doing, whatever is best for us... as a means to His end... whether we like it or not!

Consider the old tale of the Scorpion and the Frog. The spring rains have swollen the creek, submerging the rocks and leaving the Scorpion no way to cross. He approaches the Frog and says “Brother Frog, with your strong legs you still cross the creek each day with ease. Won’t you carry me across on your back”? “Do you think I’m a fool’? the Frog asks. “If I let you climb on my back you’ll sting me and I’ll die.” “That’s ridiculous,” the Scorpion replies. “If I were to sting you while we’re crossing the creek we’ll both drown.” The Frog thinks it over, agrees the Scorpion’s argument makes sense, and obligingly lets his neighbor climb up on his back for the trip across the stream. Half-way across the Scorpion stings him. With paralysis spreading through his limbs the doomed Frog has time to croak out one more question before they both slip beneath the surging waters to their death. “Why did you do that,” the Frog asks. “Now we’re both going to die.” ‘I couldn’t help it,” the Scorpion replies, “It’s just in my nature.” Without Transformation... Without Christlikeness... Without Christ’s indwelling nature, Self, the old Scorpion within will prevail... and we will die!

IT’S JUST IN MY NATURE

RENEW

Renew, Greek - anakainoo: Anakainoo is made up of “ana” which means again and kainoo which is from the Greek root kainos which means “new”, qualitatively new and different from the past, new in nature.  Kainos carries the sense of better, unfamiliar, unexpected and wonderful.  Kainos differs significantly from “neos”, another Greek word also translated new which means new in time, numerically another one newly acquired, but no different than the others.  A look at the way kainos is used in scripture demonstrates its qualitative difference to neos:

* The new heavens and new earth - Rev. 21:1; 2 Peter 3:13

* The New Jerusalem - Rev. 3:12, 21:2

* The new wine - Mk. 14:25

* The new name - Rev. 21:7; 3:12

* The new song - Rev. 5:9

* The new creation - 1 Cor. 5:17

* The new covenant (in Christ’s blood) - Lk. 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25

* The new commandment (of loving one another) - Jn. 13:34

* One new man (Jews and Gentiles) - Eph. 2:15

* New man (us!) - Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10

* New tongues - Mk. 16:17

* New lump (us - unleavened) - 1 Cor. 5:7

* Behold, I make all things new - Rev. 21:5

Kainos is a most important word to understand as a resident of God’s Kingdom.  If we could somehow take all that is bad out of the world, all the meanness, pain, sorrow, suffering, wars, death, all the tears, and make it new - we are not even close to the kainos heavens and kainos earth that God has prepared for those who love Him.  When God renewed His covenant with us He went from the Law of Leviticus, straight to the Grace of John 3:16 to create a “new” covenant in the blood of the Son of His love.  We need to understand when God renews something it is majorly new and majorly better - it is only “re” newed because He is changing something that existed before, making it so much better that He calls it “new.”

 Anakainoo means new again - to make new again... and qualitatively better.  The first and unique renewing of the Holy Spirit saved us (Titus 3:5), and we are to put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge (Col. 3:10) as our inward man is renewed daily (2 Cor. 4:16) so we can walk in the newness of life (Rom. 6:4), and serve in the newness of the Spirit (Rom. 7:6), having a bold new (prosphato) living access into the Holiest of Holies (Heb. 10:19,20) - through a Life to a life!

RENEWED INTO A NEW MAN

THE IMPACT OF RELEVANCE (SOCIAL APPLICABILITY)

Never have Christians pursued relevance more strenuously and never have they been more irrelevant than today.  By our uncritical pursuit of relevance we have courted irrelevance in our ministries.  By our breathless chase after relevance without a matching commitment to faithfulness, we have become not only unfaithful but irrelevant as churches.  By our determined efforts to redefine ourselves in ways that are more compelling (i.e., seeker sensitive) to the modern world than are faithful to Christ, we’ve lost not only our identity but our authority and our relevance.  Our eagerness for relevance has not been matched with an equal determination to be faithful to the scriptures.  This pursuit of relevance is very commercially profitable in the short term, bigger churches are in reality just bigger barns, but at such a high spiritual cost... not to mention the foreordained “spewing” (Rev. 3:16).  Of all the cultures the church has lived in, the modern world is by far the most powerful, the most pervasive, and the most pressurizing.  It is good for us to remember that God Himself has broken into our silence; He has spoken and He has come down Himself.  Nothing else is finally relevant except in relationship to His truth and the eternal.  The urgent task for followers of Christ is to be truly relevant in this hostile environment.  But the gospel does not and will never fit the spirit of this age, and should never be shaped by the spirit of this age.  As twenty first century Christians we must constantly define ourselves by the gospel and remain faithful to Jesus Christ in the here and now.  Our crying need is to be faithful which produces relevance, for in itself the good news of Jesus is utterly relevant or it is not the good news it claims to be!  The secret of the churches power down through ages is that it is in fact the best news ever because it addresses our human condition appropriately, pertinently, and effectively as nothing else has, does or can - generation after generation, culture after culture, and life after life.  The world needs the full unadulterated gospel of Jesus Christ; they just don’t understand their need.  To give them anything less not only denies them the real reality of God but demonstrates our lack of faith in the process. 

BUT GOD HIMSELF

HAS BROKEN INTO OUR SILENCE

HE HAS COME DOWN HIMSELF

HE HAS SPOKEN

THIS IS THE ESSENCE OF RELEVANCE

SUBSTITUTION: SOUND BITES ECHOING THROUGH TIME

The first century church was, for the most part, an uneducated rowdy bunch, simple folks by most accounts.  But when it came to God they had something, something we can verily fathom having long ago substituted more “user-friendly” irrelevant aspirations into our Christian walk. Does the church today replicate the first century church? You be the judge:

They used the miraculous power of God to draw people to God's salvation message. We use the promise of blessings to draw people to church. They made disciples. We make converts. Their message was Christ-centered. Our message is humanistic and self-centered. They lived as a functional, organic body of believers. We live as a disjointed association of strangers.

They had intimate relationship with God and with his children. We leave intimate relationship to our pastor. They loved those who hated them. We love those who love us back. They loved God by loving “the least of these”, connecting the first and second commandments of Jesus. We love by donating old clothes to goodwill for a tax receipt. They genuinely believed others mattered more than they do, so they served in humility. We genuinely believe we deserve the very best, so we serve our selves.

 They were poor rich people, who gave and gave and gave. We are rich poor people, who do not know we are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. They gave generously out of their poverty, out of their need and lack. We give out of our abundance, but not abundantly. Their works were made of gold, silver and precious stones. Our works are made of hay, wood and stubble. They stored up treasures in heaven. We build bigger barns.

They saw life as a movie about God. We see life as a movie about us. They set their minds on things above, being mindful of the things of God. We set our minds on things below, being mindful of the things of man. They stripped their life down to one obsession, the passionate pursuit of Jesus. We feast on our obsession for riches, pleasures and the things of this life. They crucified “self” taking up their personal cross daily to follow Jesus. We wear our gold cross around our neck and leave “self” denial to the “fanatics.”

They were concerned about character more than comfort. We are concerned about comfort, more than character. They cleansed themselves, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. We stand with defiled temples presuming upon God’s grace. They had the Holy Spirit’s power fueled by God’s love. We have the “anointing”, bartered from some televangelist for a price. They gave up what they could not keep, to get what they could not buy. We try to keep what we cannot keep, forsaking what we cannot buy.

They embraced suffering in the flesh as the pathway to spiritual maturity. We reject suffering in the flesh as sin’s reward or an attack of the enemy. They considered earthly suffering and loss as momentary light afflictions. We consider earthly suffering and loss as a lack of faith. They considered martyrdom a privilege in striving for their eternal reward and crown. We consider any and all suffering to be avoided as we strive for earthly riches, pleasures and comfort. They carried their “not-love” of their life, even unto death. We go kicking and screaming to the grave.

Their “blessed hope” was Christ's return. Our blessed hope is health, wealth and long life, the American dream sanctified. They believed there are only two days on the calendar, “today” and “that day.” We have our vacations planned years in advance. They lived in anticipation of eternity. We live in anticipation of our next toy. They expected their best life later. We expect our best life now.

GOD MEASURED THEIR LIFE
BY HOW WELL THEY LOVED

WE MEASURE OUR LIFE 
BY THE THINGS WE POSSESS

 IGNORING GOD’S LOVE-JUDGMENT TO COME

THEIR HEART WAS GOOD SOIL

OUR HEART IS THORNY SOIL

Don’t drink the Kool-Aid of complacency that everything is OK within ‘the church” today. It is not! Whether these are tendencies or full blown realities they are found throughout the Body of Christ in varying degrees, regardless of denominational flavor. Spiritual erosion is rampant and a clear sign of the times. THESE ARE THE TIMES OF THE SIGNS

IF LIFE IS A BUCKET

THEIR BUCKET HAD MANY HOLES

AND LEAKED THE HOLY SPIRIT WHEREVER THEY WENT

OUR BUCKET IS INTACT

FILLED TO OVERFLOWING WITH SPIRITUAL CLICHÉS

WHILE PEOPLE DIE OF THIRST

ALL AROUND US