Unbelief

An Appearance of Godliness, but Denying Its Power

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Please read the following verses. Do not skip over them.

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
—Acts 1:8

“‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.'”
—Acts 2:17-21

And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people.
—Acts 6:8

For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience–by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God–so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ….
—Romans 15:18-19

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
—1 Corinthians 2:1-5

For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power.
—1 Corinthians 4:20

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.
—2 Corinthians 10:4

…for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
—2 Timothy 1:7

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
—James 5:16

For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
—Hebrews 2:2-4

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
—2 Timothy 3:1-5

Thank you for reading those verses. I pray that they blessed you.

My son and I have been reading through Acts together. What continues to strike me about the Church was the power that operated through it. Healings, resurrections, miracles—they are part and parcel of what defined the Church and what made it a threat to those who opposed it.

Today, my son and I  read how the Holy Spirit instructed a normal Christian named Ananias to go to a certain street, to a certain house, to lay hands on a certain persecutor of the Church, so that man might receive his sight again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

I read that true account with awe. Sadly, that awe had more to do with the disbelief I see among so many who call themselves Christians but who readily dismiss anything miraculous in the Christian life. Theirs is a weakened, powerless Gospel.

I’m tired of reading blogs that tell me what a weak sinner I am but fail to tell me what  a Spirit-empowered saint Christ has made me because I am a new creation who sits with Christ in the heavenly places.

I’m tired of hearing people who say that all “that stuff” has passed away when the Bible tells me that I will receive power to be Christ’s witness to the ends of the earth, noting that the “ends of the earth” are still unreached in some places today. Those same people blithely ignore that the prophecy of Joel of the Last Days, filled as they were with signs and wonders, was to persist till the Great Day of the Lord.

I don’t get how people can leave out that the Bible teaches that the Gospel is accompanied by power, by signs and wonders, that these things attest to its truthfulness.

I don’t understand how people can read the Bible and come away thinking that raising the dead is just a figurative spiritual expression.  Or how people can turn off God’s voice so that He can’t give specific instructions to Christians to do this or that in ways that can’t be gleaned from  the pages of Scripture. So that Ananias does not know where to go to find Paul or that he should even lay hands on anyone in the first place. Or that Philip never hears from God to go over to that specific chariot and speak to that specific eunuch.

I’m sick and tired of a Church that walks away from its birthright of power because it is afraid, badly taught, foolish, or deceived.

You can’t read the Bible and not believe in the kind of power we see demonstrated so readily in the Church in the Book of Acts. You just can’t.

“No one ever just picked up the Bible, started reading, and then came to the conclusion that God was not doing signs and wonders anymore and that the gifts of the Holy Spirit had passed away … If you were to lock a brand new Christian in a room with a Bible and tell him to study what the Scriptures have to say about healing and miracles, he would never come out of the room a cessationist … The doctrine of cessationism did not originate from a careful study of the scriptures … [but] … originated in experience.”

– Jack Deere, former cessationist

And what is the experience Deere speaks of ?

[Jesus] went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.” And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief.
—Mark 6:1-6a

It is the same unbelief we see in the pious people who told a certain blind man to be content in his blindness and suffering:

As [Jesus] drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. And hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” And he cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him. And when he came near, he asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, let me recover my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “Recover your sight; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.
—Luke 18:35-43

It is the experience of rationalization and excuses, of misplaced familiarity, simple unbelief, and faithlessness.

It is the kind of mentality that Paul warns of when he talks about people who have a form of godliness but deny its power. Certainly the people of Jesus’ hometown attended their synagogue and seemed pious. They had a form of godliness. The only problem was that they denied its power. And the mighty works were diminished, even at the hand of the Lord, because of their dismissive unbelief.

Those dismissive people anger me. And they are everywhere in the Western Church, a Western Church born of the Enlightenment that denies anything and everything supernatual.

On my wall is a picture of a missionary. His name is Rachapalli, and he labors in India, his homeland. He is a Christian today because a pastor came to his home and laid hands on Rachapalli’s paralyzed father and did what all the witchdoctors could not do: healed him by the power of God. The words of God were confirmed to that family because of this healing, and they gave their lives to Christ.

The Gospel is going forth in power in nations that are not ours because those people in those nations still believe. We, however, have our best Bible teachers telling us that all that stuff passed away.

This explains much about the destitution in the American Church.

What about you? Do you believe the Bible? Or do you believe people who have a form of godliness but deny its power?

And when the men had come to [Jesus], they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?'” In that hour he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight. And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”
—Luke 7:20-23

Rethinking Evangelicalism’s Tropes #3: Faith

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Juan de Valdés Leal - 'The Sacrifice of Isaac'

Juan de Valdés Leal - 'The Sacrifice of Isaac'

Evangelicals love the Reformation. While most Evangelicals are not Lutherans, you’ll get a lot of head nods if the importance of Martin Luther’s actions comes up in casual conversation. And it’s next to impossible to talk about Luther without talking sola fide.

But as much as Evangelicals want to talk about faith, I’ve found that the more educated an Evangelical is and the higher up on the socio-economic ladder, the more the issue of faith becomes one of talk and conjecture rather than actual practice.

In fact, when some hoped-for and prayed-over outcome fails to come to pass, anymore it seems that the most intelligent and wealthier Evangelicals are most likely to come up with a tortuous explanation for the failure based on issues of God’s sovereignty or His will. What they don’t ever want to say to one who failed to receive is “The failure was due to your lack of faith.”

In Evangelical circles, at least in the educated and wealthier ones, claiming that one failed to have enough faith is tantamount to shouting a racial slur or vulgarity in someone’s face. We just don’t do that. We’re too afraid of hurting someone’s feelings.

Problem is, I’ve read the New Testament and the writers are constantly telling us that God honors faith and that doubters shouldn’t expect to receive anything from Him. In short, we didn’t get what we asked for because we lacked faith. It’s our fault, not God’s, no matter how hurt our feelings may be to hear that.

I looked up the phrase your faith in the ESV version of the Bible, and Jesus uses that term nine times in a positive sense, typically along the lines of “your faith has made you well.” Those faith possessors got what they wanted because they didn’t doubt but instead trusted Jesus wholeheartedly.

Lack of faith is almost never (and I’ll show you the one semi-exception that I know) rewarded. Instead we get passages like this:

[Jesus] went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.” And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief.
—Mark 6:1-6a

Jesus could not do many miracles in His hometown because his old neighbors rationalized away whatever faith they may have had in Him. They came up with naturalistic, “educated” explanations of why they could expect so little from Jesus. And they received the results of their unbelief.

Then there is this:

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
—James 1:5-8

How often do we ever apply that passage to our own lack of faith? Instead, we treat those words as if they apply to some nebulous, theoretical other.

In the truly “impossible” situations, Jesus deals with the unbelieving by choosing who stays and who goes. Witness His actions here:

While [Jesus] was still speaking, there came from the ruler’s house some who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James. They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. And when he had entered, he said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement. And he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
—Mark 5:35-43

Jesus took only the three disciples most likely to trust Him, and He had all the scoffers removed from the house. Why? Because He has no room for those who lack faith.

On the positive side, there’s this:

As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
—Mark 11:20-24

I once wrote a post about that Mark passage, claiming it was the least-believed passage in the Bible. I stand by that statement. That so many of us Evangelicals will try to explain away the very upfront nature of Jesus’ statement here, making excuses for ourselves and for others, is a sign that maybe we’re just as lousy at the faith thing as Jesus’ doubting neighbors.

As for Jesus even remotely rewarding doubt, the only passage that comes to mind is this one, and I believe the Lord puts this in the Scriptures as a cautionary tale (and with a big qualifier):

And they brought the boy to [Jesus]. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.
—Mark 9:20-27

Jesus here is somewhat shocked that the father of the boy questions His ability to work through faith. Despite this, He restores the boy to wholeness, though one could argue that He does so only after the father confesses the error of his unbelief.

Yet don’t we routinely add “if you can” to our prayers to the Lord? Aren’t we constantly hedging our bets when it comes to asking for big things in prayer?

And who are we that we should be let off lightly? Maybe someone needs to simply say to us, “You didn’t get what you wanted because you didn’t have enough faith.”

My mother died from brain cancer. She died just months after our first child was born, right when we needed her most to help us. That my father had died just months before her only compounded how much we needed her help, if for no other reason than the major relief of having an on-call babysitter now and then.

During my mother’s illness, I had to come to grips with the fact that I didn’t have much faith to believe that she would be healed. Her kind of cancer was almost always 100 percent fatal within a couple years of diagnosis.

Now my perspective on supernatural healing and the ability of the Lord to work miracles was no different then than it is now. But the fact remained that a part of me doubted that God would indeed raise up my mother to wholeness. I remember the months of her slow decline and my lying in bed at night realizing that I just didn’t have enough faith to believe she would be restored. And she died.

Now it may be a horrifying thing to some of you to hear me say this, but honestly, I need to own up to my lack of faith for her healing. Her death may in fact be partly due to the lack of faith in me and those around her. It may not, but I can’t excuse myself. The whole incident made me realize that I needed to grow up.

I think it’s time we stop being babies about faith. Maybe we need to man up and accept that perhaps the bad outcome was because we simply did not take God at His word and failed to have faith. That may be galling to people. It may be hurtful to those who have suffered loss. But I can’t find any excuses in the New Testament for doubt. They just aren’t there. If we say we believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God, then we have to come to grips with this reality right from the myriad examples in Scripture: People who have faith get what they ask for and people who don’t have faith don’t.

One last thing: Paul’s thorn.

So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
—2 Corinthians 12:7-10

That passage is the one most people will cite when it comes to unanswered prayers said in faith. I will fully concede that God did not give Paul what he prayed for.

But I will add what few people ever do: God audibly spoke to Paul to specifically explain why the apostle would not receive what he prayed for in faith.

When God audibly speaks to you and me to give us a reason why we should stop praying for something in faith, then we’ve got a great reason to stop praying and start accepting the hard answer. Otherwise, this is how we are to pray—always:

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.'” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
—Luke 18:1-8

That final question of Jesus should haunt us. That we try instead to make excuses for our own lack of faith should haunt us even more.

A Dozen Sayings of Jesus That Will Change the World—If Christians Ever Believe Them

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When I began to write this post, I looked for a dozen passages in the Scriptures that Christians in the West largely ignored in practice, despite mentally assenting to the truths contained therein. But what scared me as I delved into this was that far too many passages of the Scriptures are simply ignored.

So I started focusing. Eventually, I narrowed down a dozen sayings of Jesus from the book of Matthew alone. A sad state of affairs, indeed, that I can cull a dozen passages from just one book that are largely ignored by enlightened Evangelicals. But there you have it. Perhaps if we were more serious about the Scriptures, we’d spend more time putting these words into practice and less time obsessing over the petty little kingdoms we build in our own names.

1. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you….”
—Matthew 5:43-44

We love to hate our enemies, don’t we? In like manner, we don’t seem to much believe in the power of prayer to either change our enemies or change our own antipathy toward them. It’s a double-edged sword that continues to cut the Western Church to shreds. Do we love people in Al-Qaeda? Do we love Iran’s leadership or North Korea’s? Do we pray for those enemies?

I didn’t think so…

2. “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. ”
—Matthew 6:24-34

I think it would be telling if God raised up a prophet within His Church who was able by word of knowledge to point out those in the Church who loved money more than God. The awful truth may be that God doesn’t need such a prophet; I suspect that most of us in the West would fail that test, no supernatural revelation needed.

When we look at how we spend our time, most of it is devoted not to doing the Lord’s work but accumulating the trappings of an opulent society that has forgotten God and believes too much in its own ability to provide. We devote outlandish amounts of time to making money and next-to-nothing for the eternal Kingdom of God. I believe that any one of us can run the numbers on our own lives. This is no sacred/secular division test, but one of the heart. We will devote our time to what we love. And most of us are devoted to what will burn and not to the Lord who made us and who calls us to be a holy people separated unto Him.

3. “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. ”
—Matthew 7:1-5

Love first. Again, love first. It’s funny how loving first seems to temper any judging that may follow.

I find it difficult to criticize anyone. My own failings are ever before me. If I have energy left at the end of the day, it is best spent cleaning up my own house rather than telling my neighbor how to clean up his.

The world has largely closed its ears to the message of the Gospel because Christians can’t seem to get their own house in order before telling everyone else how to clean up theirs. That’s pride. And God hates pride more than just about any other sin.

4. Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
—Matthew 16:24-25

Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it cannot bear fruit. We have too many living people in the Church and not enough who are dead to the world. Dead people have nothing to lose in battle. They fight with abandon. They fight despite overwhelming odds. They fight with weapons that are not theirs simply because they own nothing of their own anymore. Therefore, God equips them with His weapons and His gifts. And those dead people change the world.

The cross is death to the self. And until we’re dead, we’re useless to the Kingdom.

5. When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?” He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?” And when he said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free. ”
—Matthew 17:24-26

I’ve never heard a sermon on this passage. This to me is a crime.

Christian, do you understand this passage? The world does not own you. Nor do you owe it. You are free.

Yet how many Christians out there are in bondage to the world? Many are weighed down by the cares of accumulation and keeping up appearances. Others cannot move beyond the past. Some are in bondage to the future. Many are trapped in the hell of legalism and performance.

These are people to be pitied.

Christian, you are free! It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks of you or asks of you. You are a son or daughter who only answers to the Father.

Now start acting like free men and women.

6. And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
—Matthew 18:2-4

No adults make it into the Kingdom of Heaven, only children. Only children have the faith necessary to believe in a world bigger than the one they see with their eyes. This is how heaven is, the place where God dwells. And only the children can see it.

We place too much emphasis on “mature faith,” yet my experience has been that those who self-label as mature are often the most faithless people. They claim to know God, yet they sell Him short whenever anything miraculous is needed. Their favorite word is but.

Where I come from, that kind of “faith” is no faith at all.

7. And Jesus answered them, “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”
—Matthew 21:21-22

I once wrote a post claiming that the more in-depth parallel passage in Mark is the least-believed passage in the Bible.

Christians in the West believe in what their eyes tell them. They believe in science. They believe in the rational. But they do not believe that mountains can be cast into the sea by faith. And this is why so many lost people have given up on the Church. When even the believers no longer believe, what then is the point?

8. But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
—Matthew 22:34-40

I hear too many complaints from people concerning memorizing Scripture. Anyone can memorize Scripture if he loves the words of God found in the Bible.

I firmly believe that if all Christians everywhere were to memorize this one passage and live it, the world would be transformed in one generation.

Instead, we seem to love ourselves, love the stuff we accumulate for ourselves, give God a passing mention, and think about our neighbors only when they are threatening our selves or our stuff.

And we wonder why no one in the West cares to hear what the Christian Church has to say. When even the rankest pagan knows this passage and is astounded that most Christians don’t get it, why should we then be surprised that they have no time to hear anything else from us about the Lord we claim to serve?

9. “But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
—Matthew 23:8-12

We love our hierarchies, don’t we? We all want to be the bigshot. We love titles, and degree designations, and certifications, and anything that smacks of privilege—but Jesus said it is all bunk. The real bigshots are the least likely people, the ones who serve.

What would happen in the average church if the measure by which people gained status was by humble service? The irony is that the genuine servants would serve despite the status, even if they got punished for the service rather than accruing spiritual brownie points. They realize the Lord they ultimately serve is a gentle, humble servant Himself. And one who grades on an entirely different scale than the Western Church or the world does.

Do we believe we are all equal before the Lord? Or do we ascribe to an Orwellian Animal Farm philosophy where some are more equal than others?

10. “Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
—Matthew 24:42-44

People are known for what they serve. And they are known for that service by their preparation for it. A firefighter trains for the fire. A pilot trains for the flight.

What is our service and how do we prepare for it?

It’s very simple: We do not live as if the Lord may return tomorrow. We don’t, and we have no excuse. The Lord holds out His hands pleading for the Church to be the Church, but we instead want to be the World. So little work for the Kingdom goes forth because we park ourselves in front of our favorite form of entertainment, shop for more crap that will burn on Judgment Day, or complain about how bored we are.

Meanwhile, the thief has robbed our house and left us with nothing that will survive God’s holy fire come the Last Day.

11. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
—Matthew 25:31-46

Both the sheep and the goats called Jesus Lord. The only difference between the sheep and the goats, according to what Jesus says here, is was what they did and did not do.

God help the goats. Too many of them are sitting in the pews. Worse, too many of them are leading our churches.

If we believed this passage, the orphanages would be empty.

12. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
—Matthew 28:18-20

I haven’t had a stranger attempt to share the Gospel one-on-one with me in decades. Rank chance would tell us that with several million Evangelicals in this country, the odds of not having heard the Gospel one-on-one from a stranger goes to zero.

The only explanation that it is not zero, in fact far from it, is that virtually no one is interested in making disciples. The population of born-again Christians is stable or declining in the United States. The reason is a failure to take this closing passage in Matthew seriously.

Someone else will do the work, we subconsciously think. Isn’t that what we pay pastors for?

It doesn’t matter whether your gift is evangelism and teaching or not. Each Christian is commanded to make and raise up disciples.

Twelve sayings of Jesus with the power to change the world. That it is not being changed on our side of the planet can only be explained by our inability to believe what Jesus said.

And if we cannot believe what Jesus said, how then can we truly call ourselves His disciples?