Selling Out

If we are attentive, we watch how much we are being charged for our purchases, to make sure we're not over-charged. Even with bar-code scanners, mistakes sometimes happen, and no one wants to be overcharged. But everybody's probably also had the experience of being undercharged by a distracted or harried clerk. Those are the times we show more than our money: we show who we are.

Do we point out a mistake in our favor if the clerk gives us back a dime too much ? Surely most of us are that honest. What if it's a dollar ? A convenience-store clerk recently undercharged me $10.

We often read news stories about someone: a homeless man, a cab-driver, a welfare-mother: who finds a large sum of cash somewhere...and returns it to its owner, or turns it over to the police. It's a "feel good" story, especially if the owner amply rewards the finder. It feels good because it proves there are people whose honesty is not for sale, regardless of their circumstances, at any price.

Because that's what happens if you take that money that doesn't belong to you. Before, you had your honesty: afterwards, it's gone. You sold it. How much did you get for it, a dime ? a dollar ? Or maybe it's for sale, but you're holding out for a higher price ?

Scripture says we have the mind of Christ. For every Christian, that's the core of who we are. But we can sell that too, as surely as we can sell our honesty.

You could make a lot of money in business, for example, if you'll operate by the prevailing spirit of the world: that business is governed by amoral "market forces" such as the law of supply and demand, or "what the market will bear." But you'll have to swap out Jesus' teachings that business too is under His moral authority, through your moral decisions about fair prices and fair pay.

But the real sale you make there is not for money. The "mind of Christ" which we have is a complex of spiritual attitudes and operative ideas. So is the currency with which Christ's mind is bought and sold. To buy the idea that Christ is King, you must pay with your idea that you are master of your own life. To sell out Christ's idea that your purpose here is doing what pleases the Father, you must exchange for it the idea that your purpose is to please yourself, or someone else, or some organization of men.

Why do so few American Christians not have the mind of Christ ? They've sold it. Most of them have sold it for the political ideas of the earthly faction they choose to follow: love of the Truth has been sold for love of lies, rebelliousness accepted in exchange for submissiveness, Jesus' mercy to the poor and sick traded for their faction's disdain for the poor and sick.

Most of them have never considered the price they've been paid. Or even considered that they are selling: so little are most Christians aware of what life in Christ is.

Father, awaken those who are sleeping. Father, deal with as You will those who sell out Jesus with their eyes fully opened.

No Need for Repentance

Another men's Bible study. One of those side-tracks of doubtful relevance to the Bible, which I'm not sure how we get off onto. One of the men was telling of his brother's friend, a Vietnam vet, who told him, "I've been extremely fortunate. Forty-one times, I saw an enemy soldier before he saw me, and I was able to shoot first."

Someone said, "It makes you think God must have some great work for that guy to do." A couple offered opinions about what great work God might have so signally saved that man for.

I spoke the thought that came into my mind. "I've heard combat veterans say the experience of shooting someone only really hits you later, when you get older. Someone who killed 41 men, maybe God will send him a spirit of repentance, " Not said to be controversial: it just seemed that God would want anyone who killed so many people to repent.

The silence must have lasted two full minutes. It caught me by surprise. It was extremely uncomfortable, all the more so since I couldn't quite figure out whar it was about. I wanted to say something, just to break the silence, but felt like God said, "Don't speak." Eventually someone else spoke again, about something else, and conversation resumed.

It seemed then, and still seems to me now, a common-Sprirtual-sense view. It's inconceivable to me that someone who killed 41 people would not need to repent. It's inconceivable to me that anyone would think otherwise: least of all Christians.

I've written about it here before: when you really set out to think as God thinks, it sets you apart from the world...and also from other Christians.

Platte River Christianity

In these Great Plains water is often in short supply. On a map, it appears there are many rivers to sustain life. But Plains rivers are often poor sources of water. Too many are like the Platte River, "a mile wide and an inch deep."

More than water, our lives are dependent on the flow of Christ's Spirit. But heart-deep Christianity also seems in short supply among us. We resort to prayer...when we need something. We fast when we want to impress God that we really, really need something. A few of us actually read His word, but only in specific limited contexts: Sunday School, or Bible study. We try to listen to what God's saying to us....when ? Not often. Our Christianity is nothing that permeates and soaks our lives in the Spirit.

Like the political faction it chooses to follow, America's Church is "issue"-oriented and opinion-driven. Any who want to drink deeply of the Spirit will find its Platte River Christianity a false hope, a "faith" a mile wide and an inch deep.

The Kingdom of God

Doing Romans 13 in Sunday School.

Hearing all the usual arguments against subjection to human rulers.

I'm more sure than ever that the Christian's way in this world is an absolute and stark choice between two ways. We respond to whatever God's given us with rejoicing acceptance, as Jesus did: or with rebellion, as Satan did.

Submission to what God's chosen to give us: whether it's pleasing to us or not: is faith in His wisdom, goodness and (most of all) His absolute sovereignty. Rebellion manifests disbelief in God's wisdom, goodness and (most of all) His absolute sovereignty.

In God We Trust

We've all heard the lie that goes around "conservative" circles periodically: that "they" are going to remove "In God We Trust" from American currency. That lie, of course, is supposed to make us fearful and angry against "them," and make us follow the "Godly" liars...who (we're supposed to believe) will KEEP that motto on American currency.

And keeping that motto on American currency will...what ? What is it supposed to mean ? That America is a Godly nation, that trusts God MORE than its wealth ?

Perhaps America SHOULD take "In God We Trust" off our currency. How can it not be an affront to God that we shout such a hypocritical lie on our every penny and every dollar ?

The Current Church in America

I'm glad to live in a time and a country where, after 2000 years, we've finally got it right. Thanks to the political "Christianity" we've chosen to follow, the American Church at last practices the kind of fiscally-conservative, self-determined, individual-rights Christianity that Jesus taught.

Conspiracy-thinking

"For thus the Lord spoke to me with mighty power and instructed me not to walk in the way of this people, saying,

'You are not to say, "It is a conspiracy!"
In regard to all that this people call a conspiracy,
And you are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it.
It is the Lord of hosts whom you should regard as holy.
And He shall be your fear,
And He shall be your dread.' " (Isaiah 8)

It's a very timely word to anyone who seeks to follow God in America these days. My e-mail is continually awash in warnings
of conspiracy: shamefully, most of it from Christians whose thinking has been corrupted by "conservative" politics.

What is "conspiracy" ? It's those people who are plotting (usually secretly) to harm us. Richard Nixon (a master plotter himself) put
the conspiracy-mindset well on one of his secret Watergate tapes: "Make no mistake about it: they are out to get us."

Conspiracy-thinking grows from a partisan worldview: that it all comes down to "us vs. them." Nixon could have been the poster-boy for that worldview. It's clearly widespread among current "conservatives" too, and the Christians who follow them. But like conspiracy-mindedness, partisanship (or "factionalism") is a sure sign we're not walking in the Spirit. (Galatians 5:20)

God put His finger on the matter. People who see the world filled with enemies plotting against them are fear-stricken. People driven by fear tend to be irrational and violent. Inducing fear has always been a powerful tool of unscrupulous politicians (Nixon again comes to mind, as do current "conservatives") for those reasons.

Most of the conspiracy e-mails I see add lying to their sinfulness. (If there's any doubt who's behind the partisanship, fear and irrationality of conspiracy-mindedness, just call to mind who Jesus said is the "father of lies.") You know the e-mails I mean: "they" are going to remove Christian crosses from military cemeteries, take our guns, make our courts recognize Sharia law, take "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God We Trust" off our money, and outlaw Christmas.

The media won't tell us about this grand conspiracy, of course: they're part of it. So (the anonymous e-mails say) is our secretly-Muslim President, the United Nations, the World Council of Churches, the World Monetary Fund, and the Boy Scouts. Make no mistake about it: they are ALL out to get us.

Those who choose to believe lies can always be easily manipulated by Satan. But God's warning doesn't make a distinction between imaginary and real conspiracy. He spoke to Isaiah about a real pact of foreign kings joining to destroy Israel. Similarly, the Communist leaders of the recent past were very candid about their purpose, publicly proclaiming, "we will bury you." But God told Isaiah even a real conspiracy was not to be feared: it was HIS determination that man's plot "will not stand." So he determined about Communism in our time.

Those who feared the real conspiracy of Isaiah's foreign kings, and those who feared Communism, were no different in God's eyes than those who today fear that our human government will make it a crime to say "Merry Christmas." They fear man more than they fear God. They fear conspiracy (a sin which God forbids): and manifest their disbelief that God rules, and that His power is greater than anything evil men and the enemy can do.

The conspiracy-minded show that their real faith is in Satan.

"Christian Media"

There's always seemed something a little bogus about the idea of "Christian media."

Christian media's offerings have never really been to my tastes; but it's more than just personal tastes. In practice, it's always seemed somewhat inauthentic: news, music and opinion deliberately skewed to fit a narrow predetermined purpose. Something like people who set their news feed to ONLY provide them gossip about professional wrestling or rap-music. It ends up being a fragmentary reflection of reality, and not-quite-true.

Seems like "true" and "reality" should be the watchwords for Christians, since Jesus is the Ultimate of both. In practice, for those whom I know to be typical consumers of Christian media, it seems primarily a way of identifying yourself as a member of "the club." In practice, I find good secular news-organizations (not Fox News, for example), reporting mundane daily news on the traditional journalistic criteria of setting forth facts, have more of Jesus about them, more truth and reality, that "Christian media."

Our theology is that Christ is in the world: "built-in" as the Logos through Whom all that exists came into being, born and living in human flesh among men as Jesus, and active today through the Holy Spirit. Even today I've heard two "secular" news-stories on NPR to which my spirit excitedly said, like Peter from his fishing-boat, "It is the Lord !!" Yesterday Jesus spoke unmistakably from a book I was reading, in the words of a Vietnam veteran describing his 40-year after-war struggles.

I don't know that any of the people in these instances were Christians. It doesn't matter: they witnessed of Jesus. I'm impressed that in His final hours, the Roman governor Pilate, Pilate's wife, the High Priest Caiaphas, the thief crucified beside Him, the Roman soldier standing guard as He died, even the sign posted above His head on the cross, witnessed in their different ways Who Jesus IS...and none were His followers. "Christian media" would not have interviewed or put any of them on the air.

Do we believe our theology ? Or is Jesus' Presence so hazy in the real world He created, where the Holy Spirit works, that we can't see him ? Is His voice so indistinct it's drowned out by reality, and we can't hear Him ?

Peter recognized Jesus when he saw Him. Recognized Him even though He couldn't possibly be there, alive. "Christian media"...indeed, the Church itself...doesn't act as if it believes He's here at all, except within the walls of our club-house.

"Christian" media, and the widespread "conservative" hatred of secular media, have the same deleterious effect on the Church. Both promote the idea that Christ can't be found "in the world." Deleterious because it's untrue, according to our Christology. Deleterious because it teaches Christians to only look for Him within church walls: and that atrophies the spiritual expectation, and ability, to see Him anyplace in the "real world" !

Wrong again, Church.

Wake up, Church.

Church, Repent your unbelief !!

Two Questions for the Church

If your religion doesn't equip you to tell right from wrong, what good is it ?

If you don't care about the difference, what's wrong with you ?

Christian Orientation 101

Orientation as a Christian is a simple process: one step, the same step each time, in every circumstance. Skipping that step insures that you will miss Jesus.

Jesus said He IS "the truth" (John 14:6). He said satan is "the father of lies" (John 8:44). All who believe what Jesus says will orient their lives, hearts, words, and acts accordingly.

Like Jesus, truth is real. Truth is verifiable, and owes nothing to opinion. Like Jesus, truth is one: "I'll follow my truth, and you follow your truth" is a lie (see above, "father of lies"). Like Jesus, truth is sovereign: every other criteria is subject to it.

There are no lying Christians, and no Christian lies. "No lie is of the truth." (I John 2:21)

The whole of a Christian's orientation in life consists in this: who loves Jesus must love truth. Who follows Jesus must follow truth.