Just make sure you remain balanced.
Be careful – do not run too far with that.
Avoid extremes. You go too far out on that limb and you will regret it.
Calm down. Hush up. Process within. Do not wade too far out.
Mild salsa. Room temperature coffee. Finger food. Monochrome, one size fits all, keep an eye on the clock, just-right-porridge. This is the new normal for Western Christianity.
So much of this kind of approach to the Kingdom will be exemplified, taught and embraced this week as church houses become filled with bustling activity. Some Christians will not be able to buy into the vanilla flavoring though. I am one of you. Some of you are over the idea that Christianity is primarily about being calm. Some of you cannot stomach another Sunday of sentimentality. You threw away your ticket to the Museum of Religious History, and are now seeking to get in the door of some gathering of believers where the God of the bible is meeting with a handful of hungry souls, and beautifully transforming them for the Kingdom.
You are done with the well-orchestrated ballet, and are now seeking out a sanctified mosh-pit where there is little discernible synchronization… but a whole lot of glorious impacting contact.
I am with you today. I just cannot bear the thought of living another day on the gentle cycle, presumably preserving the delicate stitching of impeccable religious garb.
I am still listening
for the
Lion’s roar.
Sundays are notorious for being the day of the week where voices are stifled, visions are diluted, power is regulated by skepticism and the hungry are given a Saltine with a precisely measured wedge of cheddar. Not so in the accounts of Scripture; Jesus and the Apostles enabled the blind to see. Waves became lily pads for the Son of God and Peter to trot across. The supernatural was natural in the first century. By the way, the dead were raised, and desperately broken lives became vessels of power and spiritual treasure. Nobody was surprised at the miraculous in the early church because they believed the promise of the Master when He declared that His disciples would do what He would do, and greater works than He did (John 14:12). Thousands were saved, people parted with their goods, the Gospel was a living flame of truth and Spirit and they just happened to turn the course of history. The doctrine of suppression teaches us not to expect anything like this anymore. Most of you have been impacted with the lowering of expectation your whole Christian lives. Now, what I have written above sounds radical, extreme and way over the top. I ask you one question: is it biblical? If you conclude that it is, then revoke the suppression that you have been infected with and begin to raise your voice to the extreme, radical, glorious King of the universe and welcome Him to turn you inside-out.
My prayer is that this state of suppression will never be the case with me or those I celebrate the King with. “Quiet & quaint” Christianity needs to find a home elsewhere because it is always one shift away from becoming “quelled and quivering” Christianity. If everything that occurs where we worship is explainable, then God is, at best, only an observer and, at worst, altogether absent because He simply isn’t needed in order for things to be pulled off. My prayers this morning included some petitions that, if answered, would cause directional shifts for many lives. People will end today with eyes opened to some things they have never seen. If my prayers are answered, people won’t really know what to say at all because we will enter into that same Kingdom reality whereof it was once said, “We have never seen anything like this!” (Mark 2:12). When the doctrine of suppression is removed from the place of normal expectation, and the goal is no longer nice, neat, timely and tidy…this is where Kingdom begins to replace control. If anybody wants to take a vote on this possibility, I go ahead and check the YES box.
Anybody else want to get in on this? It sounds a whole lot better than merely enjoying a nice Sunday this week at church.
Where is that check box? I vote a supreme Y-E-S!! To God be the glory…great things He will do!!!