Dancing One Thousand Miles

This morning while I was cooking breakfast, listening to music, and dancing like a Baptist, the Happy Song by Delirious played from the playlist I was listening to and I actually paused to really pay attention to the lyrics.

Oh I could sing unending songs
Of how you saved my soul
Well I could dance a thousand miles
Because of your great love”

Then I realized the truth in the lyrics. Oh I could sing unending songs? Yes I “could” sing, the question is not in the actually possibility, if it is plausible for me in the same way I “could” pray without ceasing but the question is “do” I sing unending songs. Is my life a song of praise, a song of joy, a song of worship, a song that brings Him glory – in everything I do? Not only that, the song says I could dance a thousand miles. Now I understand that it is hyperbole to dance 1000 miles and at times when things are “good” it seems easy to dance 1000 miles but Christ tells me to simply walk 2 miles. Is my grip on faith one that ebbs flows with the tides of blessings and trials, a grip on faith that “dances” only when there are earthly blessings? It may be my desire is to dance 1000 miles regardless of the terrain, yet I will only do that when I have completely surrendered, when I have completely denied myself of all fleshly desires. So, I must continue to climb this spiral staircase of sanctification striving to be holy as He is holy, stumbling again and again being picked up again and again and reminded of His great love.

Render unto God....

Jesus in looking at a coin answers the questions of paying taxes by saying, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” We often view His response as direction as to what we do with earthly government. Yes this is true however that is only half of what Christ said. “Render to God the things that are God’s”. What are the things that are God’s?

How to draw me to your church?

Today I read an article “10 things to draw me to your church”. From the surface it all “sounds” good yet there is a fundamental flaw. The goal of the article it seems is to draw someone to the institution of “church” such that they become the all elusive “club member”. I have seen so much effort made by churches to “entice” the community to enter their doors with the sole purpose of gaining prospects. We have harvest parties, offer parenting, marriage, and financial seminars promoted as “we’re reaching the community” where the effort is made in the registering or signup. So much priority is made on attendance that the culture now measures spiritual maturity with attendance and evangelism is inviting individuals to a service or event instead of simply sharing the good news. This has led to the average Christian compartmentalizing their life, with “church” (which represents their personal relationship with Christ) in a box set off by itself that is only opened Sunday morning and opened Sunday night and Wednesday night for the dedicated. This lack of interest has led churches to become “relevant” to the lowest common “seeker” such that it removes Christ completely from the church because there are none that seek righteousness, no not one. “But we’re about building relationships” churches say – relationships between who, man and man or man and Christ? If the measure of our church is defined by the number of lost people that sit in a chair for the Sunday service with the hopes of connecting with them to build relationships then we can say we do pretty good. Even so if the measure of the church is defined by the fulfillment of our purpose statements, idealistically those “fully devoted followers of Christ” would be devoted at the workplace, parks, shopping centers, movie theaters, highways etc. and we wouldn’t need to “draw” anybody to church with programs or paradigms because by being the example of Christ every moment of every day, the grace we live by would draw people to Christ regardless if they “attend our church”. The church in the book of Acts, spent time devoting themselves to the apostles teachings and as a result, had favor with the community. Bottom line, it is Christ that does the drawing, we simply do the obeying.

Good News?

We often say the salvation is the “Good News”, salvation from the slavery of sin to the freedom to sin no more. Of course that doesn’t mean we don’t sin we simply have a choice to not sin anymore. Anyway, if it were such “good news”, then why do we not spread it more? When was the last time you heard someone say “did you hear the good news?” or have we become so jaded that the only thing that catches our attention is sensationalized tragedy which simply lets us know how fallen the world is? I heard a quote from 23 year old Kerry Underwood “God has blessed me so much I will be spending the rest of my life trying to figure out why”. If the Good News is such a blessing and really is “GOOD NEWS”, what holds us back from sharing it?