No Ordinary Thaw

Been listening to Francis Chan lately. I really like this guy’s heart. He’s a real person without a doubt. Here are some quotes from his Crazy Love book we’re reading with some others right now. Something to think about:

It is not scientific doubt, not atheism, not pantheism, not agnosticism that in our day and in this land is likely to quench the light of the gospel. It is a proud, sensuous, selfish, luxurious, church-going, hollow-hearted prosperity.

In the United States, “numbers” impress us. We gauge the success of an event by how many people “attend” or “come forward.” We measure “churches” by how many “members” they boast. We are “wowed” by big crowds. Jesus questioned the authenticity of this kind of record keeping. According to the account in Luke 8, when a crowd started following Him, Jesus began speaking in parables so that those who WEREN’T genuinely listening, WOULDN’T “get it.” When crowds gather today, speakers are extra conscious of communicating in a way that is accessible to everyone. Speakers [today] don’t use Jesus’ [truth and righteousness and wisdom] to eliminate people who are not sincere seekers.

The fact is… He just wasn’t interested in those who fake it.

The American church is a difficult place to fit in if you want to live out New Testament Christianity. The goals of American Christianity are often a “nice marriage,” children who “don’t swear,” and good church attendance. Taking the words of Christ literally and seriously is RARELY considered. That’s for the “radicals” who are “unbalanced” and who “go overboard.” Most of us want a balanced life that WE control, that is “safe,” and does not involve suffering.

(all emphasis mine)

That approach and Wisdom is not something we see exhibited around us, is it? How is it that Jesus is the most loving person who ever lived, and we think we have a “better way” than Him? That we actually “love people” more than Him by our accommodation and compromise of the true gospel — and therefore our MISrepresentation of who He really is, and also therefore, in effect, our altering of the gospel? Jesus purposefully told people, “Shhh! Don’t tell anyone I told you this!” He purposefully spoke in parables to keep the pretenders and the people who wanted Jesus only for His perceived “benefits” (to themselves) from truly understanding Him. Can you imagine? He purposefully told people when He did miracles on a number of occasions, “Don’t tell anyone I did this,” “Don’t tell anyone what you just saw here.” Can you imagine?
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I normally don’t post twice in one day (or even in one week), but this was so totally jaw-droppingly real — when I read it, was like “YYYYEEEESSS!!!” — I had to post this today. Just terrific:

A child kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough… It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again,” to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again,” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daises alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

–G.K. Chesterton

Man, if that doesn’t just tickle you to the bone, if that doesn’t just resonate with you as “Yeeessss!!” I don’t know what will.

There actually is a progression of Spiritual Life that John alludes to in 1 John 2 that depicts our lives spiritually as progressing from children, then fathers, THEN Young Men. He wrote it twice to make sure we wouldn’t miss it. The spiritual progression of men and women is from childhood to fathers/mothers (taking responsibility in God’s house) THEN to Young Men and Women — warrior/priests who are absolutely taking it to satan and busting him in the chops (1 John 2:12-14).

The progression is toward who God is. And God is Young.

Related

• Children, Fathers, Young Men

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us… The most pretentious fact about any man is not what he at any given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.

–A.W. Tozer

Or put another way, the closer one’s conception to the Reality of God, the closer one is to the highest purity, perfection, satisfaction, holiness, and Christ-likeness. Who God “is” is already set. God is Who He Is. God said that: I AM WHO I AM It is not within our prerogative to decide who God will be. But only to align our thoughts and perceptions to Who He Actually Is. Nothing else matters.

And when we’ve seen Jesus for who He is, then we have also seen God for who He is as well (John 14:1-6).

An email passed on:

From: Don

Now, as always, God reveals Himself to “babes” and hides himself in thick darkness from the wise and prudent. We must simplify our approach to Him. We must strip down to essentials (and they will be found to be blessedly few). We must put away all effort to impress, and come with the guileless candor of childhood if we do this, without doubt God will quickly respond.

When religion has said its last word, there is little that we need other than the life and love — of, in, through, and to God Himself. The evil habit of seeking God-”and” effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation. In the “and” lies our great woe. If we omit the “and”, we shall soon find God, and in Him we shall find that for which we have all our lives been secretly longing.

We need not fear that in seeking God only we may narrow our lives or restrict the motions of our expanding hearts. The opposite is true. We can well afford to make God our All, to concentrate, to sacrifice the many for the One.

–A.W. Tozer

Because the pursuit of only God is the pursuit of the One Thing — the One Person — who will require the most expansion our hearts. Everything and anything else will not require the same amount of space and our space polluted with other things leaves less than the optimal space for Him (John 8:37).

Recently we received two things that I believe are inexorably linked and related. A couple of days ago, we received in regular snail-mail an advertisement, an invitation to and an appeal for yet another new “church” in our area. There was a consistent message, it was very artfully and professionally done, and it’s location is on or close to a major university campus. And today I received a PDF teaching called The Astonishing Day of Christ. The relationship between the two was striking.

So as for the “church advertisement,” we’ve seen a number of these “new churches” spring up since we’ve lived here — and more are already on the way. Just on the east side of the TC alone probably no less than five or six of these have popped up and all of them have a very non-denominational feel and appeal. All of them are marketed very, very well. And I would definitely say that I can tangibly sense the earnest and sincere appeal behind them all. So I’m not questioning people’s motives at all. If anything, it’s continued evidence that people everywhere feel there is something wrong with “church” as we’ve classically known it for the last 2000 years. “Something’s missing!!” is one of the silent cries behind the artful invitations and color coordinated, thematic literature. And I understand and empathize with that.

But unfortunately what I also sense is a yoking with the world and the world’s methods to make that appeal. Good, honest, sincere people who mistakenly believe that a consistent marketing message and approach as well as “appealing to the current culture” is going to produce different results. Einstein stated once that “Doing the same thing over and over again and yet expecting different results” was the very definition of insanity. And despite these types of renewed “efforts” at “church,” we see the insanity of pretty much the same fruit.
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I was absolutely floored to find out today that buried in some of Martin Luther’s writings, as far back as 1526, he was of the opinion and thought that the only real church was that which was not publicly celebrated where any pagan off the street could come in and “participate” and “go through the motions” and no one would ever know.

But instead, Martin Luther advocated the same kind of life for those living in his 14th century as what was practiced in the 1st century. That is, as in Acts 2… “Daily in public and from house to house” where everyone was bound together by sacred oaths and who had no need of pomp or fluff or traditions of men where a “religious show” was put on. But rather that men would gather together spontaneously, on their own (because they truly were born a second time and weren’t merely responding to en event on the calendar where anyone can “show up” for a few hours and “look good” — but an actual kind of life that not only would allow those truly born from above to recognize the merely religious and the pretenders, but that they should do something about them.) A place here men were taught to “obey all that [Jesus has] commanded” and not just passed along “information” about God.

He said that the only reason he didn’t follow through on living that way was (1) he didn’t see the kind of leadership (ie. Ephesians 4 giftedness) to pull it off, and (2) because, like in today’s world… he didn’t see anyone around who really wanted to live that way.

Check this out. Some comments are in order since the translation into English is a little archaic and the idioms don’t quite carry over:
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Recently revealed, personal thoughts of a once super rich and famous person, “adored” the world over:

I know there are a million people worse off than me [and] that I should do all that I can for them, but at the end of the day I have to live with myself [and] emotionally at the moment I am upside down [and] confused (so boring for those around me) [and] putting on this act is desperate, but if it keeps people off my back then surely it must be worth it. (emphasis mine)

Just an interesting perspective when the enemy uses all the electronic media at his disposal to “convince” us that the grass in greener if we were just rich or famous or a movie star or… This person had everything at his/her disposal, practically, and anything he or she could have ever wanted. This person’s desperate death in a desperate search for love while running from way more than the people who were chasing him/her at the time proves otherwise.

Always good for me personally to hear, so I thought I’d pass it along.