Finger Thinking 042713

I've been reading Isaiah and Jeremiah - wow!!

But what really hit me (blame the Puritans) is how everything God calls His people to account for (Judah and Israel that it) is just as applicable to the "church" today.  As a matter of fact the Puritans had the lovely habit of referring to Israel and Judah (those who had the faith of Abraham no the "religion" of Moses for faith trump form every time) - as the "church in the Old Testament.  So leaping from that, the whole of the prophetic writings apply to the "church of today" as well.

As Martin Luther is reputed to have once said, "A golden plated turd is still a turd."  It's the old "lipstick on a pig," thing.  We are rich and big and hollow.  We are sending men and women into the field for harvest while we let our neighbor do to hell.  We are more concerned about the unborn and guns than we are the hell bound men and women around us.  We are more committed to the Constitution than we are the Scripture.  We are more focused on establishing our own security than trusting Him with it all.

We invite the world and the devil into our homes on giant HD screens.  We watch trash sponsored by trash and see nothing wrong with it at all.  We laugh at sin, we are engaged by corruption and oh how we love the tough guy who just shoots everybody.

We will carry a copy of the Constitution in our back pocket while our Bibles gather dust.  We'll memorize the arguments for the Second Amendment but we know very little of God's Word by heart.  We'll home-school everything except our faith - that we pay others to do.  We have to get our kids into competitive sports so they can learn to "beat"/"defeat" others.

We will sing God's praises because there are 5,000 people in the building on Sunday morning but only a few are believers.  We will sing God's praises with lyrics the prophets would detest and we are happy.  We want excitement and engagement instead of solemnity and our engaging God.  We will read hundreds of books written by questionable teachers but we will not examine their teaching by the Word.

We are indeed the church and we are no different than the "church in the OT."  We are faithless in content, context and commitment.  We are ripe for refining.

We will engage the "culture' in battles over morality but whoa to the Pastor who does so on Sunday.  We hate the "big" sin while we collect the small.  Idolatry is a thing of the past?  Satan and the demonic are not more?  And God forbid you suffer some mental illness that makes folk uncomfortable - there's no place for you pal!

Yeah - I'm pretty fed up with the common "church" and the "common" Christian.  Not that I'm perfect - I could write volumes concerning my faithlessness and failure.  But at least I am aware and willing to take up the fight.  What about you?