compassion or condemnation?

in the book of matthew, chapter 9, we see Jesus looking at the crowds out of jerusalem and the Bible says that He was moved with compassion, because they were like "sheep without a shepherd." i recently went on a trip to the decadent city of new orleans, one of many that i have made in my lifetime, and was dismayed to learn that despite recent hurricane activity, the city was still as evil as ever. however, i was able to make a trip down to the french quarter and even on bourbon street (gasp)! while some may find this disturbing, i invite them to remember the people that Jesus associated with were anything but upstanding members of their local church. during the course of the night, i did not drink anything stronger than pepsi (dr. pepper was hard to find there and sweet tea was even harder, and i thought it was a southern city!) and struck up conversations with quite a few people there on the street and was able to share Christ with them. at one point, i was relaxing in the jacuzzi in the hotel courtyard after a physical training session and a couple came over and we started making the usual small-talk, where everyone was from, why we were there, etc. i was surprised to learn that they lived only a couple of miles from the hotel and they also worked in french quarter on bourbon street in one of the topless bars. he was the dj, and she was the bartender. i was able to have a very meaningful conversation with them about Christ and what the Bible said about their relationship and a variety of other things. i ended up getting to see them again before i left and was able to talk some more with them about salvation. what struck me as odd was that this couple lived in the south, where there is a church in practically every square mile of every city and town, and had never heard the gospel. this is a reproach on the church. we had the same problem in seminary. we began to learn that there were people who lived only a few hundred yards of the seminary that had never heard the gospel. all of them had heard about Jesus, but never about sin and the separation it created between God and us and the need for a Saviour! i'm sure that this can be said about countless churches throughout our country and the world today. so where are we going wrong?

i believe the first place we have missed the mark is in our view of the lost. notice that Jesus was moved with compassion because they were like sheep without a shepherd. not because they were sick, or poor, or destitute, or repressed. He hurt because they had no idea of the fate that awaited them, and they had no hope without Him. we as a church collectively have made great strides over the last few years in getting the gospel out. however, i believe we are still missing the mark. here is the lithmus test: when you go out on missions, are you going because you feel like you need to, or are you going because you truly hurt for those you are ministering to? when you give your money to missions, are you giving out of obligation or guilt, or are you giving because you lose sleep at night thinking about those who die each day and go to an eternal hell?

the second place we have missed the mark is in our view of the sinner. we seem to think, again as a church collectively, that we are better than those out there who don't go to church and who participate in sinful activities. we condemningly refer to them as drunkards, homosexuals, abortionists, drug addicts, etc. nowhere in the Bible are we listed as qualified to judge the sinner. we are told to judge each other as Christians and to hold each other accountable, but the only person qualified to judge the sinner is Christ, and the Bible says that He will one day. the reason we are not qualified to judge them, is because we are in the same boat they are. the only difference is that we have had our penalty paid for our sin. that makes us no less sinners as it does the homosexual or the child molester or the murderer. if we break part of the law, then we are guilty of the whole of the law. we are all lawbreakers. the next time you think that you are better than those "sinners" around you, try and go a day without sinning. good luck. however, if you can accept the fact that we are just as depraved and deserving of the same punishment as everyone else, then you can get past your self-righteousness and go into the less-than-desirable places and reach out to others who are lost just as you were once. there is a group of ladies that go into the strip clubs and witness to the dancers there to teach them about the glory of their created bodies and to show them a better way than exploiting themselves.

i must say, that i am guilty of this very thing. i tend to think of it in terms of "us and them." however, this past week in new orleans reminded me that the place we are going to find the lost is not in our churches. so instead of hiding our light under the bushel of the church, we need to carry it out into the darkest places of our worlds, however big or small, comfortable or not, and let it shine brightly. a lost sinner is far more likely to respect someone who comes into their world to reach out a hand, rather than standing in the church doors pointing at the cross on their steeple. a good friend of mine told me something a while back that changed my whole perspective on missions: expect lost people to act like lost people. (thanks jason!) only when we can stop looking down our noses at those participating in activities that we find reprehensible, only then can we be truly effective witnesses for our Saviour! remember, there but for the grace of God go we! aei pistos!
-C.

talkin bout my generation

we are failing. the price is going to be great, perhaps more than we are willing to bear. what are we failing? we are failing our kids. our youth are being thrown to the wolves with no weapons with which to defend themselves. what wolves? the wolves of the secular society. we are becoming a society that is increasingly less godly and more secular humanistic.

what are we doing to combat this? the same thing we have done since the 1950s. and we stand back with our chests puffed out and rest on our "blessed assurance" thinking that we are preparing them for the world. after all, we send them to church, and to youth camps, and teach them to have a "quiet time". the problem is, it's not working. let me say that again, it's not working!

why isn't it working? because we have dumbed down kids and give them fluffed up Bible stories that are so shallow they make a bathtub look deep. the Bible says to "train up a child in the way he should go." it does not say to tell them a bunch of stories with morals to them. those are called fables people. aesop has some very good ones. and consequently, when our youth stand before a humanistic professor demanding to hear proof in the existence of God or that the Bible is true, all they can do is spout Bible stories.

we teach kids to compartmentalize their lives, where church and God fits in one, school fits in another, family fits in another, etc. or to "prioritize" their lives. you know, God first, family second, school third, etc. these are both flawed ways of thinking. we should teach them that Christ permeates and should be the center of all we do, not sitting at the top of our priority list. when we do that, He is excluded from the other areas of our life.

we are even failing in our so-called Christian schools. they come out with an education that is comparable to a public school, but with a Christian spin on things, and they have no depth, no change in thinking, no worldview perspective. just a trumped up religious private school education, where we can all feel good about ourselves and say "i sent my kid to Christian school!" in the end, it's all about appearances and feelings.

make no mistake, unless we abandon the kumbaya mentality of the 1950s and start preparing kids to face the challenges of today's intellectual and secular society, our churches will dwindle. the numbers of professing Christians will diminish. and it may just be a precursor to the prophecy in the New Testament concerning the many that will leave the faith. the book of James is very specific. those who teach will be held to a stricter judgment. that goes not only for pastors and youth pastors, it also goes for parents, teachers, grandparents. i think i may have to go and cover up my mirror, because the finger i'm pointing ends up pointing back at me.

can your mirror remain uncovered?

socialism, nostradamus, and asteroids

in case anyone was paying attention, an asteroid the size of a 10 story building buzzed past earth, missing us by only 40,000 miles the other day. while this may seem like a long way off, it is only 1/7 of the way to the moon, and only 2x as high as our highest satellite. if it would have hit the earth, scientists predict it would have been the equivalent of a large nuclear blast. what's even more interesting is that it is within the earth's orbit, which means we will have plenty of near misses from this thing in the future.

also, if you are into that sort of thing, the mayan calendar runs out in the year 2012. why is this significant, you ask? well, up until now, the mayan calendar has been the most accurate of any calendar ever devised by man, partly due to the mayan's advanced astronomy. many believe that the mayans believed this date to be the end of time. nostradamus, while normally a quack, has had some interesting predictions that make eyebrows raise in terms of how accurate they are, and he states that we will have a major celestial upheaval in our solar system when our sun travels through a cosmic disturbance, producing three different eclipses in the same day. interesting.

then there's obama. our immensely popular president, seemingly loved by all worldwide. he is ushering in a new era of socialism in our country. a totalitarian regime where the government owns all and controls all, including our finances. one major economist is predicting that the u.s. economy will collapse by 2012, due to the over-spending of our government.

interesting stuff. the Bible says that no man will know when Christ will return, and people have been predicting it ever since the disciples' time. however, the year 2012 seems to possibly have some major omens attached to it. what if there were only 3 years left on earth? how would you spend them? what changes, if any, would you make to your life knowing that you would stand face to face with the Creator, the Christ, to account for your life? make no mistake, every day we are living on borrowed time. what will you say when you are asked to give a report of how you spent and invested the time that was entrusted to you?

sleep well, friends. for tomorrow may not come for many or all.