Prayerfulness

Just Give Me the Book of Acts

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Cerulean Sanctum has been quiet lately. Truth is, that quiet reflects the disquiet I have in my own spirit.

I don’t know how most people live, but I guess they erect filters to keep the madness out. Head down, nose clean, and a gracious nod to the status quo. Don’t get too involved. Keep emotions stifled. And for heaven’s sake, don’t go around poking sleeping bears with a stick.

Which makes me wonder if I have a screw loose, because I keep my pointy stick close by.

Frankly, I’m pretty much fed up with American Christianity. I’m certainly not angry with Jesus. By no means! But I feel helpless as I watch people who claim to be Christians go off the rails. I’m not a perfect saint, but it continues to horrify me how badly some Christians have brainwashed themselves into ways of thinking that in no way reflect anything I read in the Bible. I’m not talking about the obvious heretics, either, but people with a platform and a loud microphone, blog, or publisher, who disseminate stuff that only serves to diminish the Church. They may look like they’re serving the saints, but in all likelihood they are actually preaching some sliced-up gospel that bears no resemblance to the real one. And many of these people continue to be considered the be all and end all of Christianity in North America.

I’m convinced that our collective maintenance of the status quo enables us to read the Scriptures and not have them affect us one iota. I witness how some folks read the Bible and it blows my mind that passages that should explode everything a person believes don’t even register.

I dare each person reading this today to sit down this week and read the Book of Acts, preferably in one sitting. I’m not talking about an in-depth study, but just read the book.

Now I ask you: Does what you just read in Acts depict today’s Church? If not, why not?

I’ve been reading Acts with my son, and what continually hits me is how far we are from being that kind of vibrant, miraculous, committed Church.

I mean, I read Christian blogs and books today that tell you and me how weak and sinful we are and that what we have today is better than what the Church had back then.

I call shenanigans on those people.

Stop making excuses for faithlessness! Stop telling us how sinful and weak we are, and start preaching the full gospel that we believers are now new creations, seated in the heavenly places with Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit to do even greater things than Jesus did.

That’s in the Book, folks, but some people just can’t deal with truth.

It makes me crazy that some people can tell me with straight face that God has given us something better today than what those folks had back then.

Really? Makes me want to know if they have ever read the Book of Acts.

“Oh, that’s just descriptive, not prescriptive,” they’ll say.

You know what I say? “Stop doubting and start believing.”

I find it insane that the same people who will denigrate personal experience when it comes to anything related to the practice of the Faith will run immediately to their own personal experiences when confronted by biblical realities and practices they reject. 'Blind Woman' by Paul StrandThey claim to uphold biblical truth, yet their double standard condemns their rhetoric.

There’s not a Christian on this continent,  no matter which denomination or sect he or she endorses, who hasn’t turned a blind eye to some part of Acts. Some people gloss over the charismata, some the community, some the evangelism, some the commitment and martyrdom. Simply put, we as a Church in North America do not want to peer into Acts and deal with what we read there.

I don’t understand the kind of  half-baked “church” some people endorse. Especially when their “church” doesn’t look anything like the one depicted in Acts.

I’m sick of those who ignore parts of the Scriptures because that’s what they’ve been taught to do. I’m sick of playing at Church rather than actually being the same kind of Church we see in the Book of Acts.

Keep your blogs, your books, your podcasts, and your pieced-together rhetoric. Just give me the Book of Acts.

Fear, Fights, Flameouts, and a Few Weeks Without a Post

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Regular readers will know that I haven’t posted in a few weeks.

The simplest explanation comes down to my increasing bewilderment at the state of the American Church. I’ve been gobsmacked (or should it be Godsmacked ?) by the increasing  insanity within our ranks. It truly feels like people are losing their grip on reality.

I’ve watched a few fights among believers online over piddling differences. I’m sick to death of the all-important need by some to be correct, even at the expense of love, fellowship, and unity. I’ve watched one battle in which neither side can come up with a solid biblical platform to justify their position,  and neither side will acknowledge that perhaps their side could learn something from the other. No, the need to be right trumps everything else, and the conversation descends into so much name-calling and noise. Sickening.

I’ve watched frightened believers, who resemble Chicken Littles, call for filling the bunker and fleeing to gold reserves (despite what Larry Norman sang about gold and bread). It’s the end of the world as we know it, and these self-appointed stokers of fear are on the front lines sounding the trumpet. “The _______________ {Insert bogeyman group or individual of the week} is going to wreck everything we’ve built for ourselves” is their clarion call. Faith that God is still in charge and that whether we live or die we are still the Lord’s don’t seem to enter into the equation. As I see it, When the Lord comes again, will He find faith on earth? indeed seems to be the question of the hour. A positive answer appears doubtful given how riddled with fear American Christians are. A big difference exists between being sober and being fearful;  it’s past time for us to know the difference.

I’ve watched a few more ministry flameouts, big ones. That’s all I’ll say. You probably know who.  No need to bury more of our wounded, though some seem eager and ready for the task.

All in all, it makes you wonder if the people behind all this mania realize how damaging they have become to the cause of Christ. The fighters, the fearmongers, the detractors of the flameouts—which of them is bettering the case for the Gospel?

People of God, don’t get involved in this garbage. Go about your commission. Don’t veer off the path. Don’t listen to the siren calls. A lot of people out there are using the guise of Christianity to sow discord, anxiety, and rebellion. Ignore them and go about your godly business.

Lost people look to the Church for answers. It’s time for us to grow up and start offering them.

The Forgotten Prayer of Jesus

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One of the final prayers of Jesus before His crucifixion:

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me….”
—John 17:20-23

Gordian KnotThese are the words of God Himself in the Flesh, Jesus Christ, and yet that prayer carries a bitter irony: We Christians are far from one. If our oneness is to be the very representation of the Trinity’s own oneness, how then is it possible for us to be so fragmented and hostile to those people who share and affirm our belief that Jesus Christ came in the flesh?

It makes me wonder how much better would be the state of Christendom today around the world if we spent more time in genial, wise conversation with those who disagree with our particular interpretation of doctrine or biblical interpretation. Instead, we go to great lengths to prove our “foes” wrong and believe ourselves the best people to deliver that correction.

What does it mean to work toward ensuring that Jesus’ prayer of perfect oneness matters in how we conduct ourselves with brothers and sisters who disagree with us?

Take one position that divides Christians across the country. It may not seem like a make or break doctrinal stance, but I’ve witnessed the most terrible things done in the name of this disagreement: the consumption of alcohol by Christians.

For some Christians, anyone who drinks alcohol might as well be the devil’s own spawn, Christian or not. That said, I drink alcohol. I have a glass of wine with meals now and then. Sometimes I might have a beer.

The Bible says this about wine:

You [God] cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart.
—Psalms 104:14-15

And with all due respect to those who would like to see Prohibition return, grape juice doesn’t have the same ability to gladden the heart of man as a good glass or two of a fine Pinot Noir. Let’s get real here.

That said, I perfectly understand those who shun alcohol, especially when they’ve had a bad past with it. Alcohol killed my own father. I fully support anyone’s decision not to drink wine, beer, or spirits.

Yet how these two sides can tear into each other! Especially when a glass of wine with dinner somehow gets conflated with “do not get drunk with wine.”

And should I go into the battle over the continuance/cessation of the charismata? Or of credo- vs. paedobaptism? Can we talk about eschatology? Don’t our positions on those doctrines make an enormous difference in the fundamental ways in which we believe and how we practice the Faith?

Can we disagree and still be one? Or will the group in power run roughshod over the other?

How many issues have we made divisive in the Body of Christ? And what about Jesus’ oneness prayer?

So alcoholic drink consumption, despite the fact it can be used as club in some Christian circles, isn’t a major doctrinal issue for many. Or any of those others I mentioned. OK, what else then?

My post “Better Than a Beating” discusses how to handle someone who is 90 percent accurate, but not 100. Fact is, each of us has been at 90—or even less. In fact, some of us may just now be reaching that 90 percent stage. Growth means leaving behind what we were and becoming more like Christ is. That’s a continual refinement that won’t be complete until we draw our final breath. Agreed?

So what about the worst of the worst Scripture manglers out there? Well, even they have common ground with us if they conform to the following biblical test:

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
—1 John 4:1-3

Do we know anyone who believes and confesses that Jesus Christ came in the flesh and yet he or she still professes some wonky theology?

If we do, then our role is to go to that person and try to win them to a more fully developed and Scriptural theology. Isn’t that what Christ would do? The Bible seems to say that it is:

“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory; and in his name the Gentiles will hope.”
—Matthew 12:18-21

“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”
—Luke 15:4-7

The Bible adds this:

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
—2 Peter 3:9

If the Scriptures says that Christ is gentle with the bruised reed and the faintly glowing wick, if He is willing to leave the many to rescue the one that wandered away, if He is patient with us and with our progress toward Him, how is it that we so rarely exhibit those same traits toward others, especially perceived theological foes?

One final statement concerning the Scriptures just noted—please read this again:

“…a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory….”

That final phrase should warn us that the patience will some day turn into judgment for those who will not acknowledge the full truth of Jesus Christ. One day, there will no longer be any excuses, and those who dragged their heels will have no recourse.

But that day is not yet come. Until then, we are to work at being one. And it is work. No one said restoring people with flawed personal beliefs and practices would be easy. Too many of us, particularly those best equipped to handle truth correctly, often consign the flawed thinker to perdition ahead of Christ’s own, final pronouncement.

Do we believe that any one living, breathing person is beyond redemption? If so, then we have nullified the blood of Christ. If Christ has had mercy on you and me, how then can we fail to show mercy to others, even those who some would say are our enemies because their beliefs are not yet fully conformed to truth?

All God can ask of you and me is that we do not give up on those who are lurking at the fringes, no matter how great or small they might be. Justice is His alone and He will execute it at the right time. Until then, the prayer of Jesus for oneness should ever be before us. Because when we are one, the world can see His glory.