Take A Fix

While many people in our world live in uncertainty and chaos for much of their lives, we in the West feel that we are in control of most things and that if something does go awry that we can fix it. This attitude is not only pervasive in society, but in much of the professing – church. For us in the West, the current health, economic, and social situation is uncharted waters.

I asked a retired Coast Guard admiral what principles he would use if his ship were in uncharted waters, here is his reply:

Q:  What principles would I use if I found myself in uncharted waters?

First, take a fix.  You can’t decide which direction to head until you know where you are.  Until you have the fix, slow down, and be prudent.    That is exactly what the government is advising the public to do — back off on the speed of normal life.    Problem is, we aren’t accustomed to slow.   We have been trained to expect all problems to be resolved within 30 minutes and five commercial breaks. This thing will teach us all a few lessons — patience among them.  I pray.  

Of course, the admiral’s reply makes a pretty basic assumption, and that is that someone on the crew knows how to navigate. In navigation, what may seem to be a minor error may cause the ship to deviate hundreds or thousands of miles from its desired destination.

Even worse, suppose the people teaching navigation to future crew members didn’t know what they were doing, suppose they had departed from tried and true navigation principles and skills? What hope could there be for the crew? In this case the entire crew would be trusting in a false hope.

What are our navigational principles in our uncharted waters? Where have we learned our principles? How are we calculating our bearings?

For the disciple of Jesus Christ, and anyone who wants to become a disciple, the answer is Jesus Christ and His Word, the Bible. I don’t mean a Jesus who died 2,000 years ago and remained dead, nor do I mean a book that is lifeless; I mean a living Jesus Christ and His living Word – a Word to which we submit and allow to form us into the image of Jesus Christ.

But how can professing – Christians navigate if they have been taught to look to themselves and not to Jesus? If they have been taught to take their direction from society and not Christ and His Word? How can we accurately navigate when we have substituted ourselves for Christ, and the pleasures of this world for the Cross? When we have lived lives of denying ourselves nothing in the face of Christ’s call to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him?

The beginning of arriving at a navigational fix is determining our relationship to Jesus Christ – this includes our relationship to His Word – the two cannot be separated. If our relationship to the North Star, Jesus Christ, is off – than all other navigational calculations will be off and we will be sailing into rocks that will destroy our vessel.

We are easily deluded. I’ve been reading and rereading the Letters to the Seven Churches in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 and, among other things, I’m struck how self-deluded most of these churches were – Christ warned five of the seven that if they did not repent that He would remove them.

Our eyes are not to be on Fox News, CNN, or whatever your choice of poison may be – it may even be a media “Christian” or “ministry” who would rather have numbers than preach and teach sacrifice and self-denial in Jesus Christ and His Cross. Christ calls us to die so that others might live – if you hear anything different run from it.

Disciples ought to be slowing down and looking to Jesus Christ (Psalm 123:1 – 3; 130:5 – 6) and our souls ought to be weaned from the electronic cocaine that invades us via television, the internet, and radio (Psalm 131:2).

Our eyes ought to be on Jesus Christ, and on Him alone (Hebrews 12:1 – 3; Colossians 3:1 – 4; 1 John 3:1 – 3).

We ought to be reminding ourselves and one another that we are citizens of heaven before anything else (Philippians 3:20).

We cannot help others if we don’t have a true navigational fix on our relationship with Jesus Christ.

Let us submit ourselves to the scrutiny of God’s Word, let us submit to the conviction of the Holy Spirit as His Word works deeply within us (Hebrews 4:12). Let us cry out to our Father to purify us.

Jesus says that the gates of hell will not prevail against His Church. This is an offensive picture, it is a picture of His Church storming and dismantling the gates of hell.

Hell is all around us: The hell of fear. The hell of hopelessness. The hell of injustice. The hell of hunger. The hell of narcissism. The hell of a Christless Christianity. The hell of a people obsessed with money and possessions. The hell of congregations having left their first love and substituting themselves for God…and bringing idols into the church. The hell of popular political agendas – from the left to the right, and from the right to the left.

Is it possible that we can break out of the opium den in which we live? Or have the pleasures of our society placed us in a descending stupor from which there is no return?

Dying from Covid-19 is not to be feared…but dying without Jesus Christ is an eternal tragedy.

And for those of us who have embraced a cheap Gospel with cheap grace, let us not be deceived – we will all give an account to Christ of our lives – we will all be held accountable (2 Corinthians 5:1 – 10; Romans 14:10).

Can we say with Paul, “But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself…” (Acts 20:24)? This is our calling.

What is our navigational fix?