The latest in the leaving the land of "Make Believe"

[Underneath this post is a growing concern understand what has happened, who we are in our new creature, and what does "body of Christ" mean.]

It would appear that what is at stake here, and has been for almost 1900 years, is "the way".  When you look at the Gospels and Christ’s message to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand it seems like an odd way to "evangelize".  Where’s the four spiritual laws and the Roman’s Road?  But what if we were to realize that this Kingdom that he speaks of is not something future, or just while He was here, but something he had brought to earth in a very real and powerful way? While granted it is a kingdom that is partially but not fully revealed it begs us to start asking some tough questions. Hopefully it has driven us to realize some pretty profound advancements that were made by Christ himself that directly apply to the living out of the human existence.  Things that were not typically done or even understood in the Old Testament.

It is a basic doctrinal claim that Jesus was both fully human and fully God.  But we have refused to practically flesh out what Christ has revealed to us about the kingdom.  Was his life what the Creator intends humankind to be and to do?  If you go back and consider this in the light of the garden account it radically shifts ones thinking.  What if Adam and Eve lived solely to do the will of their Father?  This acknowledgement has basically been swept up with the rest of the "unrealistic" dirt on the floor of Christian religion and tossed in the trash can of irrelevance.  How can we who claim doctrinally Christ’s divinity and humanity acknowledge so little authority (see Mt 28:18) to this One who showed us what it means to live a human life in accordance with the will of God?  The typical response by the "unbelieving believer" is, "Hey, let’s be realistic here, none of us are Jesus!"  The implication in this statement is that Christ’s expectations cannot be taken seriously as an ethic we would ask of everyone - or even anyone!  I know myself we reason and I could never subject myself to these expectations. (walking on water, healing people, raising folks from the dead, even greater things than these!)

 Have we not reached such a state of apostasy that it’s common for even are pastors and leaders to lay claim that they are not saints they’re just sinners like the rest of us saved by grace?  Are we saints or are we sinners?  "Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that we must no longer walk as the world does, in the futility of their minds.  They are darkened in their understanding, alientated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardness of heart.  They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.  But that is not the way we learned Christ!  - assuming that we have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." (personally translating Eph. 4:17-24 to the here and now)

Should we not grieve along with the Holy Spirit and groan with the rest of creation?  Sons of the second Adam and daughters of the second Eve this current existence is not of the LORD but of the evil one!  Rebuke it in the name of Christ… repent for the Kingdom of God truly is at hand!!!  Rise up saints and lay claim to what Christ has afforded you.  You are not who you think you are.

Because I want us to dive deeply and profoundly into this discussion and really engage ourselves to move forward in this journey out of the land of "Make Believe" (where it’s more important to believe than be or do).  We must be about finding the way!  It’s time to pack of camp and move out and experience life.  In essence Christ has said to the children of the wilderness the path out of the desert and into the promise land has been found.

If we take the view that is stated at the opening of this discussion we have to overlook or "spiritualize" (my least favorite word in Christendom) the New Testament claim that the people of God are the "BODY OF CHRIST".  We are not the  continuation of the ministry and work of Christ right in the midst of real human history… right in the midst of oppression, injustice, violence, and greed… right in the midst of political unrest, terrorist attacks, urban sprawl, pop culture, and the list goes on.  Instead we must embrace something much more tame and managable where we sit and wait on a kingdom to come later at the return of Christ - deeming the Lord’s prayer irrelevant or just an attitude of the heart and not one of real physical life.

My question to us was going to be where are the engaged evangelicals? where are the people of "the way"? Where do we find them? By Christ’s own admission (Mt 5:14-16) they should be easy to spot because they are a city on hill, and it should lead to the glory of God.  But no… we don’t find them do we? We’ve been trodden under foot by the context of the culture that we live in… because we are not salty.  We’ve found a way to live in doctrine that doesn’t impact lifestlye and ethics.

What do we do when we suddenly realizes that our priority as the church is about religious practice not absolute surrender, compartmental spirituality not wholistic lifestyle, full of wanting to but not willing to, teaching right doctrine but never living right ethics?  How does the salt regain the saltiness that it has lost?  Christ declares that it cannot it must be thrown out. (Mt 5:13)  And the church today is being trampled under the feet of a post-modern culture… and to be honest I’m filled with joy and at the same time scared to death!

We have been pushed to the farthest corners of culture.  Church. A sentence all in itself and all by itself.  We’re the home of the trivial faith and the nominal allegiance.  A faith where we strive to be relevant without having to be revolutionary…  Where we talk of the crucial but offer it at a fraction of the cost. Where we deliver the message but in the end nothing is reconciled.

We’re not about "the way" anymore.  I’m afraid we’ve forged another way.  This way allows us to twist the message of God’s grace.  Instead of changing the lifeless and pathetic condition of our hearts of stone it merely allows our hearts to sit on a more self-righteous pedestal and worship it’s own selfish desires  and now without guilt.  Our obedience to God appears to be more like a happy coincidence, where our selfish desires and his holy commands conveniently happen to intersect.  So we find ourselves picking and choosing the laws that suit us while avoiding those that don’t allow us to indulge our favorite desires.  In the end we’ve laid a hold of what we always wanted.  A life where no one tells us what to do - not even God!

The church if it wants to live is going to have to die and be reborn through brokenness and contrition.  It must surrender its very life and not care that it has lost it so that we might find it again and be known again as people of "the way".  Our silent admission is that "the way" is not practical and doesn’t translate into the real world.  And we’ve lost our Way.

Great epic change must happen first within the very life of the body of Christ - and I would add, within this very part of that body (me)!  What if each part said, "Today I will change myself and this will change the world.  For my life and ministry is not about changing people but demonstrating change in myself.  I now know that God has changed the economy by which the world operates.  I now embrace the grace awakening which is Christ. He is changing me and I am engaging on a journey with Him."  In other words pack up camp we moving on to right living and not just right thinking… a right doctrine that embraces a right living?

At this point, I want to bring the concept of God’s jealousy (zeal) back to the forefront, as some of you might have already figured.  Those who have been enlightened and received Christ have stepped out of the darkness.  They no longer seek to hide from the presence of God (see Adam and Eve narrative) but desire to come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been carried out in God.  This zeal that the Bridegroom has for us His Bride must stir in us and remind us of our true image.  For now not only have we been created by God, we have now been re-created in Christ.  We now are awakened to God’s kingdom that is now at hand and realize that we are "His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." (Eph 2:10)  We realize that our Bridegroom has given completely of Himself to "redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works."  And that this new focus and work is to be embraced in the here and now as we "wait for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ." (Titus 3:11-15)

And as Paul reminded Titus we should declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority… and let no one disregard us!  So as we look at the current state of the church, one that has shown moments of arising from its slumber, and ask ourselves in what ways have we been "sleeping with the enemy"?  By God’s grace he is still remaining faithful, even when we are faithless.  How have we "slept around" on our Bridegroom and not embraced His way as the way?  What tensions in the current culture have we not faced but avoided?  What aspects of "the way" have we conveniently labeled as unrealistic and not practical?

The Kingdom of God is now!

Your brother in Christ,

JC

Something to "Muse" about...

Yes, I'm still being a Chaesr of God.  Just haven't written anything lately.  So for all those who wrote me off here's a double scoop of Rocky Road Ice Cream for you to savor!

At [wildernesschild] we're continuing to discuss the concept of forgiveness.  Something that just jumped into my head today (probably because of my itunes selection) is a song that talks about forgiveness.  The band Muse released a song back in 2004 called "Sing for absolution" that deals, in many ways, with this concept.  In fact when I went back and listened to the rest of the songs, the whole alblum wrestles with the concept of forgiveness.  For those who are students of culture I'm sure you have pondered over the lyrics in these songs and asked yourself some hard questions.  Maybe you've never heard of Muse.  Maybe when you realize their a secular band you'll tune out and find another post to read... (maybe you haven't read this far).  If that's you I would ask you to listen up and take note.  I would ask you to step out of your Christian green house and wrestle with what these guys are trying to say.

My hope is to spark your curiousity to reconsider and bring some things back into public awareness that have been buried regarding forgiveness.  Maybe you don't think forgiveness is dead.  But let me ask you this, when's the last time you forgave someone or asked for someone's forgiveness?  If your theology doesn't translate into real life actions then it's really a dead theology.  We need to go and dig that casket up and ask the Lord to breath new life into our beings.  Some of you don't like dealing with corpses but I think there's some good here to be uncovered and even revived. 

In honor of our Monty Python boys from the BBC pretend that forgiveness is crying out, "I'm not dead yet!"

In the Christian world there seems to be a cancer that we've learned to accept as okay and uncurable.  It's one that claims the lives of countless "Christians" and even whole churches and denominations.  When we systematize our theology we tend to give it the lethal inject and put it to sleep and bury it in the grave never to be living again.  I don't mean we never talk about again but we talk about it in dead ways.  We can't interact with it anymore because it's dead - it's canonized and treated as Scripture and unchangable.  And yet we need it to be alive and we need to be interacting with it and we need to have it living in our communities of faith not buried with a nice tomb stone that reads: "Here lies forgiveness.  Born 33 AD Died (whenever your theology book was written).  Great concept may she always be remembered."

True theology is a living theology.  And it should infuse life into us (corporately).  It should bring about the character of God being manifested in our midst.  True theology will be the image of God being revealed in us as we live in community with each other.  I think this is the real point Paul was trying to get across when he was inspired to write Romans 12:1-2.  He was revealing that true theology will always be manifested in the midst of a community.

Through the process of people putting their theology into practice they find if what they believe in their mind is really true - and it is that truth lived out that sets them free!  There's two things that might be wrong here: wrong thinking or wrong living!  Either you don't know the truth and have believed a lie or you know the truth but have not fleshed it out authentically.  In Christ we have someone who perfectly manifested in community what the image of God should look like.

One of the great things about treating our theology this way is that when we do it wrong we have the ability to go back and reconsider the revelation that God has given us concerning the aspect at hand.  Very little of church today takes their theology practically.  And even fewer within the church today take their theology relationally.  Maybe it's because our theology is dead.  Maybe we should corporately visit the grave site and begin an excavation project of the things that we've buried.  A process that involves everyone corporately discovering together how the truth of Scripture should be incarnated.  Only then will theology become a very visible, living and powerful aspect to the Christian life.

Or we can join Muse in the last verse and sadly sing, "our wrongs remain unrectified and our souls won't be exhumed."  There is no other way for us to join Paul in saying, "I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God at work unto salvation." (emphasis mine) 

Romans 12:1-2
I appeal to you therefore, brothers [and sisters] by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

• Do you think that Romans 12:1-2 is speaking to the individual or the community in regards to how they flesh out true theology?
• Consider what it would look like for God's people to take a concept like forgiveness and approach it through this kind of a model.  In other words, I [Paul] appeal to you [all] therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  [Regarding forgiveness] Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you [all] may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
• Read the lyrics below.  What kinds of questions do we see "Muse" asking about life as it relates to forgiveness?
• How could their questions be answered in a community of believers who are living out Romans 12:1-2 in the manner I have described?

1. Absolve - to determine to be free of fault, guilt, or liability; to set free or release from some obligation or responsibility
2. Rectify - To set right; correct
3. Exhume - To remove from a grave

Currently Listening Absolution By Muse Sing for absolution see related

peek-a-boo!

Godchaesr Ekklesia

okay so this is going to be somewhat vague but...

we're wanting to have a gathering here in Wooster.  The dates are Feb 17-19. I have a growing passion in my heart and want to flesh it out with a few other committed followers of Christ.  The passages of 2 Thess 5:14 and Titus 2:11-15 are on my heart but so are the letters Christ sent to the churches in Rev 2 and 3. I'm seeing a us gather, connect, weep, plead, seek, serve, grow and glorify. 

I'm thinking a real family like time of honesty and seriousness... geniune love.  A time of true and good confession approaching the throne of grace with boldness.  A time of everyone coming and sharing what God has been stirring in their hearts.  The only problem (although it might not be) is that we can probably host about 20 max.

Who should come?... only God and you know... All I can say is what God has placed in my heart - moving xanga forward.  This is to consecrate our lives and pray to God for a vision.  If you can come let us know and make your own plans to get here and back.  This is open to those who want to take their faith in God seriously.  For those who know it will be set up like a godchaesr weekend we did in Atlanta in 2003. We're working on a ski trip as well when we are finished. Price is TBD but will only cover the necessities/

let us know,
JC