To the Church:
Where did we lose track of Christ? When did He become a hum-drum, ho-hum case of doldrums? When did we decide that we were more important than our Cornerstone? We are dull, both in luminescence and in sharpness. We are growing weak in every way. How can salt regain its taste if it loses its saltiness? Do people hide a city on a hill? It can't be done, can it?
But we are snuffing what light we have in local bodies of believers; we put our lamps undercover instead of putting it on a stand; we're ashamed of the Gospel or we've become so desensitized that it no longer has effect. The world's eyes are still on the Church and on our forebears, the nation of Israel! What do you think that they think?
How about you? Are you really a part of the Body of Christ or a feel-good postmodernist, unwilling to take a stand for the truth, unwilling to admit that none of us are worthy of our Creator but for the blood sacrifice of Christ? Are you unwilling to tell people that they have to submit their lives to Christ to be saved and gain heaven? Are you a person who lives truly in submission to Christ, or are you one who loves to subvert Him to your desires? Before you answer, think about these questions:
1) What do you spend your time thinking about each day?
2) What do you spend your time doing each day?
If your answers to these questions are consistent with each other, good, you're being honest.
Now, if your answers to these questions are consistent with each other and focused on Christ, then you're probably on the right track.
However, if your answers to these questions are consistent with each other and focused on you and/or your interests, concerns, well-being, then I encourage you to reconsider where you stand with Christ. He said that anyone who wants to come after Him must deny himself, pick up one's cross, and follow Him.
Final question:
Does your faith cost you anything, or do you believe a soft thing that lets you stay comfy where you're at--is it actually a journey of discipline and dying to yourself or a journey of emotional highs?
Faith, Hope, and Love,
Christ-bearer
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1 comment:
Forgive me for quoting a book, but I had just read this an hour ago before I finally had the chance to read your blog...
"And here is how we take up and bear our Cross: finally prepared by our needs, aware that our bondage was broken in Christ on Calvary, we definitely begin to rely on that finished work - we appropriate. Our attitude becomes: I gladly and willingly take, by faith in the facts, my finished work of emancipation that was establised at Calvary; I consider myself to be dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ. This is taking up one's Corss. As we learn to do this, we begin to find these facts true in experience. The Holy Spirit brings that finished work of death and applies it to all the old nature, which is thus held in the place of death - the death of Calvary. If and when we turn from the facts and begin to rely on anything or anyone else, including ourselves, self is released from the Cross - active and enslaving as ever. Through this process we are patiently taught to walk by faith, to maintain our attitude of reliance on the finished work of the Cross."
So really, my question to you is, does one live the God life because we are obligated to out of what He has done, whether it be out of guilt or out of love.... OR does one live the God life because He's already given it to us, ready to be lived out today? Ahh... and of course I'm learning what the answer to this is and how it plays out in daily life =)
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