Ponderings on this Week

I have been hearing that our nation is divided between Red states and Blue states; but where is the Christ-state? Where is the Church of our Lord Jesus? Surely we have failed in our testimony if we cannot be identified as a distinct people, a people separate and apart from the present age and a people consecrated and dedicated to our Lord Jesus.

I have heard talk of civil war. I find this hard to believe, I think most of my neighbors would just as soon be left alone to live their lives as they see fit. Let’s face it, civil war would interfere with football and I doubt that we would tolerate such an intrusion. However, for the sake of argument, let us grant that a shooting civil war is likely, then ought not the people of Jesus to be praying how they can witness to both sides? How we can serve both sides with the Gospel?

Perhaps there is a cultural civil war occurring now? Well then, ought not we to be seeking ways to witness to the Right and the Left, and to anyone remaining in the middle? Does not Jesus say, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God”?

If we are strangers and pilgrims (1 Peter), and if we are citizens of the Kingdom (Philippians 3:20), and if we are a distinct people (1 Peter 2, Ephesians 2); then ought we not to be living like such a people? Ought not the Presence of God to be permeating our speech, our actions, our attitudes? Should we not be showing our generation a better way? A better way than arrogant leadership? A better way than mocking our enemies (who, by-the-way, we ought to be blessing and loving)? A better way than embracing winning at the cost of compassion, morality, holiness, kindness, propriety and faithful witness to the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ?

Are we so foolish as to think that an alliance with the powers of this world can provide us a safe haven? That the powers of this world can further Gospel-witness? Do we think that we can ride the Beast with the Harlot and not become harlots ourselves (Revelation 17)?

Are we selling the soul of the professing church for a mess of potage? For access to power? (Whether that power lies in the Right or the Left or elsewhere). For money? (Perhaps we should just be forthright and replace crosses with dollar signs in our churches – at least that would be honest).

If we cannot say with Paul that we are determined to know nothing than Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1 Cor. 2), if Jesus Christ is not our North Star, our center of gravity, if our very existence is not dependent on Jesus Christ…then can we please call ourselves something other than Christians, can we please call our organizations something other than churches…so that people earnestly seeking God will not be confused by us and the Gospel polluted.

Praying Like Paul

Occasionally someone will say to me, "I don't know how to pray for so-and-so." The Scriptures give us many prayers to pray for one another, and among them is Paul's prayer for the Ephesians found in Ephesians Chapter 4 - in italics below. 

We can pray this for ourselves, that we might know the fullness of God, and we can certainly pray it for one another. Are we praying it for our family? Our coworkers (in context)? The families in our churches? 

Who can you pray this prayer for today? Right now?

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

Floating Downstream

More than 40 years ago, in 1974, Archbishop Fulton Sheen made the following observations:

“First of all, we are at the end of Christendom. Now not Christianity, not the Church. Remember what I am saying.”

“Christendom is economic, political, social life as inspired by Christian principles. That is ending — we’ve seen it die. Look at the symptoms: the breakup of the family, divorce, abortion, immorality, general dishonesty.”

“The press that we read, the television that we see, is in no instance inspired by Christian principles. As a matter of fact, there is, on the part of many of us, the tendency to go down to meet the world — not to lift the world up. We are afraid of being unpopular — so we go with the mob.”

“Today the current is against us. And today the mood of the world is, ‘Go with the world, go with the spirit.’ Listen, dead bodies float downstream. Only live bodies resist the current. And so the good Lord is testing us.”

“And he is testing Western Christians with worldliness, and how many of us are falling?”

Well, we can only wonder what the good Archbishop would say today.