Dave C. wrote a great blog about "In and not Of" - questioning how Christians can miss the 'big issues' that are right in front of their face. For example, the Christians of the Great Awakening missed the huge slavery issue. Peter, filled with the Spirit at Pentecost, missed the inclusion of the Gentiles and had to be brought face to face with it by a vision from God. Three times!!!
How can this happen and what are we missing right now?
Last night I watched a special on the two girls from Taylor University - where they mixed up the identities and one family nursed the other girl back to health while the other family buried a girl that was not their daughter. This went on for almost 5 weeks. The question people kept asking was: How could you have missed that it was not your daughter?
1. They were told by authorities that it was their daughter - so they weren't even considering other possibilities. They were focused on who was in front of them.
2. Their hope was so intense that they missed signs that were obvious.
3. They were so deep in the day-day that they didn't step back and see the bigger picture. The small changes that revealed it wasn't their daughter were lost to them as she gradually came out of the coma.
4. It took outsiders to come in and see the obvious - people who were detached from the small, daily changes.
Sounds a lot like Christians. We miss the obvious for the same reasons. We get so involved in the daily life that we never step back and see the bigger picture. That's why constant Bible reading is so necessary - the Bible is God's Word on the daily walk, but it is also a look at Holiness from a wider and eternal perspective.
In II Kings, when Josiah found the Book of the Law, he was knocked to his knees. He couldn't believe what they had missed for all of those years. Even years of revival had missed the obvious. Look especially at II Kings 23:13 "The king (Josiah) also desecrated the high places that were east of Jerusalem on the south of the Hill of Corruption - the ones Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the vile goddess of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the vile god of Moab, and for Molech, the detestable god of the people of Ammon."
Ponder that verse for a moment. In Josiah's revival, which was total and complete, he had to knock down pagan high places that Solomon had built years before. High places that had survived other 'revivals' - such as the one under Hezekiah. How could they have missed these things? I think they accepted them as 'okay' because Solomon had built them and they had been there so long. They had always been there! It took a fresh look at God's Word to see how detestable they were.
It sounds so simple, but if you are not totally immersed in God's word, not in other books or commentaries - but His pure Word, then you will miss these things in society and in your own life. You will be tending to someone who is not your child - missing every obvious sign in the process. You will be calling them 'traditions' and because a respected father put them into place you will never evaluate their spirituality or godliness. You will accept these 'high places' of Solomon because 'they've always been there,' because the 'authorities' told you that they were okay.
Our generation needs to look with a fresh eyes and allow for a gust of Holy Fire to blow through the churches and then be willing to start from scratch if necessary.
No comments:
Post a Comment