"Hallmark Holiness" and A "Greeting Card God".

The words of the song were common, I knew them. They flowed off my lips effortlessly. My clap was on rhythm and the volume was perfect, yet the atmosphere was dead. God was nowhere. I selected another album, a good one. In fact this was the latest and greatest, cutting edge worship chorus out. Again I sang the words boldly, mustering all the passion and concentration I could. I was saying beautiful things, I was speaking profound truths of God’s goodness and love, but I was not meant with His approval. The heavens were brass, and my christian “karaoke” was not penetrating the gap between my echo of worship and Jesus’ holy heart? 

All I knew to do was shut up. I stopped the song and stilled my heart and heard a statement that had been repeating in my head for weeks, but this time it exploded with meaning in my spirit.  “Am I a greeting card God, Do I desire “hallmark” holiness?”  “No sir, you are not, and no sir you do not” I whispered in response. My mind began to fill with moments where someone had given me a card with a message written by someone else. A message that was rubber stamp thousands of times, and addressed to thousands of others all across the world. At that moment a verse burned inside me. When you pray don’t use vain repetitions like the heathen do... (Matt 6:7 NKJV) Strong’s Concordance defines “vain repetitions” as “to repeat the same things over and over, to use many idle words, to babble, prate”. The words idle and prate stand out in this definition; idle meaning hollow, meaningless, pointless and lightweight; and prate meaning to talk foolishly or at tedious length about something. I then understood God’s sentiment He has no use for our tired, worn, redundant prayers and worship. Jesus would never treat us that way, in fact the bible says we are “to live by every word the proceeds from the mouth of God (Matt 4:4) Jesus is saying God is constantly speaking new living words to us.

I could do nothing but repent before a worthy God. I had given the popular christian pat prayers and regurgitated seance-style praise to Him, but He was not interested in the “broken record” of popular culture. God wanted the truth from my heart. Psalms 15 is David asking God, who are those who are near you, who are those who can dwell right next to you, and this is God’s response in verses 2-5.

Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right,

      speaking the truth from sincere hearts.

  Those who refuse to gossip

      or harm their neighbors

      or speak evil of their friends

    Those who despise flagrant sinners,

      and honor the faithful followers of the LORD,

      and keep their promises even when it hurts. 

Those who lend money without charging interest,

      and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent.

      Such people will stand firm forever.(NLT)

The NKJV ends this chapter of Psalms with “He who does these things shall never be moved.” 

Moved from where, verse one brings clarity ”Who may worship in your sanctuary, LORD? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? If we will follow God’s outline above we will never be moved from His presence and will retain the honor of truly worshiping Him. But if we do not speak the truth from sincere hearts then the flip side is true, we will be moved from the intimacy of His presence and forfeit the ability to give true worship to Him.

Think about it this way, it’s your birthday and your throwing a huge party inviting hundreds of friends. All the decorations are perfect, all the food is set and ready. The guests arrive and the party begins. The then time comes to open presents and your seated in front of the gift table, but to your dismay there are no gifts on it just a stack of identical envelops? You begin the process of opening and reading each one and are disappointed when the second card is the same as the first. You then let out a half chuckle as the third is the same as the other two. Card after card you go through hundreds of clones and the humor is completely lost after you discover all of the cards are copies of each other with just different names signed at the bottom. You think to yourself “Is this some kind of joke”? 

The next day you are shopping at the mall and happen to stumble into the card shop, right on the front end cap is the display for the same card you received hundreds of times the day before. Over the display is a sale sign that reads “overstock cards one penny”. You are mortified you know it’s the thought that counts, but now you question was any thought put into it, or were your friends just doing the bear minimum to gain attendance to your party?

Ecclesiastes 5:1 states “Walk prudently when you go to the house of God; and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil.(NKJV). What is the “sacrifice of fools” the NLT sheds light on this “As you enter the house of God, keep your ears open and your mouth shut. It is evil to make mindless offerings to God”. Is the gift we bring to the party, just mindless offerings of “overstock” religious rhetoric ? Is our holiness something that can be mass produced from a printing press? Have we even taken the time to ask what He might want from us, instead of force feeding God our prepackaged, microwave ready praise? Ecclesiastes 5:2 from the Message Bible perfectly illustrates this point “Don’t shoot off your mouth, or speak before you think. Don’t be too quick to tell God what you think he wants to hear. God’s in charge, not you—the less you speak, the better”. Other translations state “let your words be few”.

Our verbal diarrhea gets us nowhere with God, in fact it keeps us from residing in His secret place. “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart,Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive blessing from the Lord, And righteousness from the God of his salvation” (Psalms 24:3-5). What God desires is honesty from the depths of who we are, and to let the truth of who He is spring up from our hearts into sincere songs of worship to Him. The Message translation states it this way “What you’re (God) after is truth from the inside out Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.” (Psalms 51:6 author’s parenthesis) Those who truly worship God will “worship Him in Spirit and in Truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship Him” (John 4:23) 

So what does God desire from us? Psalms 51:17 makes this clear The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,A broken and a contrite heart—These, O God, You will not despise. Psalms also goes on to say that “praise from the upright (synonym for honest) is beautiful”(Ps. 33:1), and “to worship God in the beauty of holiness”(Ps 29:2 and Ps. 96:9). God is waiting to open up the gift of true praise from honest and holy hearts before Him. This worship is done in harmony with His will, led by His direction and Spirit. 

Of all the greeting cards I have ever received the one that meant the most to me was a mess of construction and printer paper held together with elmer’s glue. It was scribbled with crayons and markers and covered in glitter and stickers. Written inside in sloppy pre-k script was “we love you Dad”. It was signed with finger paint and the P.S. was coded in a unknown toddler language, but it was beautiful to me. It was a one of a kind, creative masterpiece of love and thoughtfulness. It was made in honest effort to make Dad smile, and He did. If we will bring our patch work praise before him and break open our paper-mache hearts in true worship at His feet, we too will find our Father smiling and proud of His children’s pure, passionate love.

My Prayer

How can I minister to you, what can I say, what can I do, that would honor you. That would bring you praise…above just lip service and religious obligation. When I grow tired of the pursuit…let me find my rest in the pursuit. Allow me the grace to vacation from pressing forward toward your upward call, by pressing forward to your upward call. Let my weariness from worship produce passion to praise…When I have done everything to stand and can no longer stand…let me stand therefore. In my moments of weakness when I long to partake of pretense, please provide your presence. Turn my need for entertainment, into a need to entertain your company and enter in to your fellowship. If I burn out…I know your fire will burn on. When I withdraw from you…give me withdrawals for you. When my flesh looks for a door to escape, give me escape to adore you much more. Hide me in your secret place where complacency cannot find me. I know I can run and not grow weary, but teach me to walk and not faint. When I excuse myself from you, give me another excuse to draw near. Why would we long to leave the oasis for the desert, to leave the castle of the king to beg for scraps in the street. Torch the bridges that bring backsliding, and remove the nets that make the fall from grace so painless. I long to pay the toll on the highway of holiness, to buy a one way ticket to the high call. To make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts, If I look back I will find opportunity to return. If I leave a trail of bread crumbs I will find my way again to a life of crumbs. I never want to forget where you have brought me from, but I never want to remember the way back.






- John 3:30

A Successfull Failure

If you gain the whole world...every dollar, every possession, every ounce of power, and status. If strong men fear you and beautiful women desire you, and if you dominate all contests and win every competition most would say you have arrived.....hmmm.....arrived where?
You have achieved everything, more then mere men could ever dream, but yet death plays the role of the great equalizer. Money cannot bribe it, lust cannot manipulate it, and power cannot apply force to it. It is blind to rank or status, deaf to reason or argument, and mute in it's warnings. Everyone will travel it's journey, and eventually fall to it's gravity.
Our success seems trivial when filtered through this perspective. Our accomplishments appear fleeting when weighed In this scale. Death either robs life of it's meaning, or it provides life with it's meaning. If our lives don't matter in eternity, then I must ask the question, why do they matter at all?
I have spent the last two weeks staring into the hustle, investigating the bustle, and "in keeping up with the Jones' " I forgot to stop and ask where the Jones' were headed to? In running the "rat race" I forgot to ask what the winner got? And even more so why I'm content with the " consolation price". I'm realizing in winning I lose, and in success I fail. Because the sad thing about a finish line is....your finished.
The treasures and trophies we've amassed in the meantime offer no ransom against the end. Our very pride and joy, the apples of our eyes, leave us stranded and naked in death's embrace. In being betrayed by our belongings, who do we " belong" to? In this moment our things...won't mean a thing, because our possessions possessed us, and empty handed we successfully fail. We fail to achieve the only accolade that eternity awards....to be known by the master of all. We made it our aim, to hit the mark of human perfection, but fall short of being pleasing to Him.
We fail in expecting our temporary prestige to be valued in forevers permanent perfection. We played the game of life with monopoly money, and scratch our heads when our "hard hearts" aren't considered "legal tender" in the final accounting. In being consumed with this current world we buried the divine currency entrusted to us, and all our potential is charged to us as debt. All of our earthly accomplishments only add to the kindling fueling the final fire. Our everything evaporates into nothing, exposing our emptiness. If all our worth dwindles into worthlessness what is left to define ourselves by? Our finite fades to infinite inadequacy separating us from freedom forever.
We succeed at our own failure, because we failed to secede from momentary meaning into timeless truth. We neglected to secure salvation over status, and fortune over faith. The vapor of existence is dissipating, and time itself is running out of time. At the edge of eternity we must decide where our riches will reside buried in a broken world or invested in "unbroken" fellowship with God Almighty.


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Gavels Down

I've constructed a world where everything fits nicely into carefully compartmentalized criticisms. I know what's wrong with you sometimes before I even know your name. I see your faults before I see your pain, and I draw conclusions with a permanent marker, while writing the hope of Christ in disappearing ink.
But, the sad truth is I'm right....my impressions usually are as bad as they appear, and my track record for spotting sin is flawless. I've got a knack for identifying evil, and a reputation for recognizing rebellion. In the past I have taken great pride in my ability to sift through the sands of someones sorrow just to find the skeletons hanging in their closet. Like a skilled archeologist I follow the trail of past mistakes, I sweep away the sentimental sediment that "covers up" our situations; just so I can find the lifeless bones that lay buried underneath surface-level semblance. But for all that archeology has ever taught us about who we are...it has never unearthed who we could be. For all the death that is has discovered it has never produced a single life....nor does it care to. It is not concerned with life outside of exposing the dry bones of yesterday.
I am that archeologist, digging up dirt on all that I encounter. I am that juryman handing down verdict, and that judge wielding a gavel with the precision of a master marksman. In all my cases closed....have I ever left a heart opened. Has anyone found life in my delivering of "life" sentences. In being correct in my stereotypes has any change come to the corrupt? Even in calling sin what it is, it still IS.
So I say gavels down, and crosses up. Just like a physician cannot treat a disease he has not diagnosed....he also fails if he diagnoses a disease he refuses to treat. In my youth G.I. Joe taught me that "knowing is half the battle", but I missed that acting on that knowledge was the other. Because to see sin just takes eyes, but to "see to" someones freedom takes heart. Describing the dead is for coroners, describing the life is for Christians. Pronouncing death is not our calling, but speaking resurrection is....gavels down....gavels down.


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Junior Strength Jesus

Allergies, migraines, back pain, sleeplessness, cough, cold, day, night....there's a pill for that. Whatever ails you we have found a remedy for, just be sure to pay close attention to the label. Because, we have extra-strength, daily dose, maximum relief, 8 hour, 12 hour, and 24 hour varieties. We even have the diluted, dulled down children's strength brand medicine.


I recently was walking through the pharmacy and actually stopped to pay close attention to the tons of options available for any ailment imaginable, and I could not help draw parallels to the way we come to God.


We like our Jesus "specially formulated" to whatever needs we believe are most important at that moment. We require our God to be "rapid release" in His response, and require the remedy to be free of any "side effects" of sacrifice or obedience. We prefer the Jehovah PM that allows us to be drowsy in out diligence and prevents us from "operating heavy ministry" while taking. We encapsulate His message into easy to shallow lukewarm "liqui-gels" and give the bitter truth a bubble gum flavor. The sad reality is our treatments have been successful. We have quieted the ringing of conviction in our ears, we have handled the headache of holiness, and have eliminated the "back pain" from carrying that pesky cross.


We have medicated the masses with a "generic" God, and have forgotten the "name brand" by which all men must be saved. We have placed our faith in "over the counter" orthodoxy but neglected to put our sin under the cross. Our youth suffer the most from the pretense of our pious pill popping, Because we worry that the "placebo presence" we have in our churches right now might be to "strong" for our kids. So we secure our truth with child-proof caps, and put it high on a shelf for when there "of age". Then we divvy out the "junior strength Jesus" that promises no over- dose.


The only problem with this is that evil doesn't come in children-strength, and the symptoms of sin aren't stopped with an insignificant "infant drops" intimacy with God. But there is a prescription capable of truly providing healing. There is a treatment of truth that goes right to the source of our pain...to "deliver" fast effective relief"....right where we need it most. It is the uncomprimised word of God, and the perfect person of Jesus Christ..." the anytime, empowering, saving, restoring, providing redeemer, so you can lived blessed medicine!!!


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Un-organized Religion

Un-organized Religion


History is littered with those attempting to harness God, to leash His omni-presence, and build boundaries around His boundless person. This "God is my co-pilot" mentality seeks to put the driven divinity in the passenger seat of man's bandwagon. We fence in the Almighty six days a week, until on Sunday we turn our religious levers and ask our God-in-a-box to pop out and perform for us. Like a master puppeteer with hands of hype we pull man's heart strings, but our theatrics leave us tangled, and our knock-off leaves us in knots. I've come to realize that the problem with the man behind the curtain....is at the end of the day it's only a man behind the curtain. Our smoke and mirrors only serve to leave us coughing and confused. We have replaced the righteous lit city on a hill, with fog machines, projector scenes, and laser shows; because we have to. We have to take everyones attention off the fact that God is not in our sanctuaries. We don't want to admit that our hearts resemble more the dry-ice in our props, then the all consuming fire of Jesus' presence. It all boils down to control...we want it...God has it, but faking it is cheaper then paying the price to experience it.


Rules, regulations, and liturgy bring shallow comfort in there predictability. It's much easier to write a bulletin around man-made ministry, then God breathed spontaneity. Don't get me wrong I'm not against having a plan....I plan to fall on my face and tarry in the upper room of intimacy with the Most High till His Spirit baptizes me in power to turn this world upside down. This type of fanatic mentality creates real issues though, it makes it difficult to beat the "lunch rush" to the local all you can eat fare. I weep over the appetites that truly get our praise, when were willing to watch and wait for our table buzzer to go off longer then on our knees in reverence to Him.


Religion is neat, and simple. It offers structure, and solace. It allows for wiggle room from the rigid requirement of organic obedience, replacing pursuing His presence with perfecting our processes. If practice made perfect, then our redundant repetition would have brought righteousness, but instead it brought bondage. We learned how to make faith a formula, and in doing so we have cured ourselves of the undistinguished disease of desperation. We have made for ourselves broken cisterns unable to hold water, we are clouds without rain, advertising what we do not have the ability to offer. Churches have taken out bank loans, and exhausted themselves with telethon like building plans in painstaking effort to achieve the fulfillment of scripture, we have worked hard to gain a form of godliness, but I fear we are working even harder to deny the power thereof.


God is calling us to un-organized religion. To wild worship, and unchained companionship with Him. It's a fact that God moves when we move out of the way. We only have to over-compensate in our services because we have under-estimated Him in our service. When our agendas and itineraries fall to His will and tempo; our pyro-technics will not compare to the brilliance of the glory He will pour our upon us. He is offering His liberty and living words in exchange for our piety and dead works. His redemption in exchange for our regulations, and His glorious intimacy traded for our legalistic liturgy. We can continue to speak only about what He has done, or we can be a part of what He is doing. We can only learn about miracles long past, or learn first hand of the miracles he longs to pass through us. We can only worship He who was....or we can gaze upon and worship who He is, and in doing so experience the worship of Him that is to come.

To Love is To Hate...

I love my favorite football team, I love a really good steak, I love a well crafted novel…In fact there are hundreds, maybe thousands of things that I “love”. It is probably the most played-out word in my vocabulary. It hit me the hardest after seven years of marriage when the mantra of “I love you, baby” started falling on deaf ears. It had been said and heard so much that her ears were numbed to its meaning. Maybe she wondered “does he love me like he loved that New York Strip we had at dinner, or maybe he loves me like he loves the “total stranger” quarterback on his favorite team.”

                  Then the real weight hit me when I was talking to God one afternoon. It was sweet moment of fellowship with Him when I whispered “I love you Lord”. The next thought in my head was “do I love Jesus like I love sleeping in on Saturday mornings?” Do I love Him like I love beating the high score on a Nintendo game?”  Do I love Him like I love a free upgrade to first class on a long flight, or like I love the sound a golf ball makes when you hit it just right?  Disgusted by the shallowness of my affection, I asked God “What does it mean to love you?”  I heard this so clearly in my heart, “TO LOVE ME IS TO HATE WHAT IS NOT ME.”

                  As a society we love sitcoms, hobbies, food, clothes; almost anything can be labeled by love. So it is easy to tell God we “love him.” Just like it’s easy to tell the barista at Starbucks that we would love a low-fat caramel macchiato.  We’ve so abused that word that it virtually means nothing. So when God commands us to love the Lord with all our hearts, minds, souls, and bodies; we say no problem. But there is a real problem, because in turn we must also hate anything that is not of Him with our whole heart, soul, mind, and body.

                 

                  Hate is not a word that gets thrown around as much. It is not as distorted in its meaning as love is. So it paints a truer picture in our hearts of where we stand. Do you hate Greed? Do you despise disobedience? Do you loath lust? It’s not so easy to answer those questions as haphazardly. Would you rather die than gossip about your neighbor’s short comings? Would you rather pluck out your own eyes then imagine what’s under that mini-skirt? Would you rather amputate your hand then raise it in anger to your spouse or kids?  Now, ask yourself honestly do we really love Him?

                  Here’s the answer….Your love for Him can be measured by the same degree that you hate sin!

                  Would you rather never speak another word; then tell a joke you know He disapproves of?  Would you rather be “entertained” or enter in to His Glorious Presence? Would you gladly embrace the pain of telling the truth or escape into the ease of a lie?  Is being right more important to you then being righteous? Would you rather have Him, or your next fix?

                  I know it’s a lot of questions but I want you to think about all of these.

                  Can you recite this sports season statistics, but not the secrets in His scripture?  Do you spend more time in the mirror putting on make up, then in His word putting on the armor of God? Do you really hate the very secular song that is stuck in your head right now?

                  So Do we really Love Him???

Personally I would have to answer that, not as much as I thought I did.

                  Now the last question is. Do you really WANT to love Him?

                  If your answer is yes, Jesus died to give you that privilege. Just stop playing games and tell Him the truth. You are where you are. Only He can change that, but only you can let Him. Religion has taught us to stop being honest with ourselves and to put on a mask. But you can’t see God’s face till you take the mask off yours. In living the religious life we have robbed ourselves of true transformation.  This is how it is supposed to work. This is the way God intended our journey towards Him to progress. We draw near to God and He draws near to us. When we draw near to Jesus, He reveals our sin to us; we repent, or let me use a better word we CHANGE (only by His Grace). Then we take another step into the depths of His splendor, and He reveals even more of our sin to us. So we CHANGE again and again and again. This is the process from Glory to Glory to Glory. So don’t be discouraged by the things that have separated you from true intimacy with Him. Just repent, receive His empowerment and CHANGE. That is how you will come to truly love Him and to hate what He hates. We get there by confessing we’re not there yet, and then submitting to His leading and following Him to our destiny in His arms.

The Mirror

(Jas 1:23-24)  For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.

2Co 3:18  But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Has the standard fallen…has the muse stopped whispering wisdom across the fading frequency of faith.  Being deaf isn’t an issue when all you’re listening to is inside your own head. Excuses come easy when the only voice of reason, is reasoned away. And everything makes perfect sense, when filtered through perfect nonsense.  Perception is reality! As we believe in our hearts so are we (Proverbs 23:7), and unfortunately as we don’t believe in our hearts so will we never be.

Ok, Ok, we all instinctively know how dim and dark the current church is….We all know that this is not the best God could come up with for His people.  So I could join again the chorus of voices screaming in disheartening harmony how terrible of a darkness has fallen over us, but the best at describing the darkness, never produced a single ray of light . And the seeds of hope have never grown in the poisoned soil of pessimism. But, and this is a big BUT, even a “half full” glass of water, won’t extinguish the fire of Hell burning in the fallen hearts of mankind. And leaders with rose colored glasses, pushing all-inclusive resort style salvation, lost their way when they dropped their crosses. Neither extreme offers answers, neither the “all is blue skies group” nor the “sky is falling camp” have opened the heavens in our hearts.

So where the answer….It is in the mirror.

I have a double meaning with the statement above.  First off YOU have an anointing and need that no man teaches you (1 John 2:27), because the answer if you have yielded your heart completely to Jesus is inside of you. We should all stop waiting for next best-selling self help book to transform our paradigm, because what I have come to see, after watching a parade of self-help, next best thing, “revelations” hit store shelves.  Is most of the time the only self that is helped is the author’s wallet, and reputation. Why, because you can’t expect to see your reflection in someone else’s mirror.  Moses can’t climb the mountain for you, because the tablets he brings back will only become law to you.  Ministries should stop trying to produce mini-me’s of the preacher, and start introducing their congregations to the only one worthy of imitation…Jesus Christ (Ephesians 5:1). We must all encounter our own burning bush, and hear the words for ourselves that proceed from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). Anything less than this will cause dependency on a man, instead of confidence in Christ. That is why the apostle Paul exhorts us with these words, “I know IN WHOM I have believed, and I’m persuaded He is able…” (2^nd Timothy 1:12).

I feel I have to stress this as not to offend clergy, authors, and the avid consumers of the like; books, DVD, sermons aren’t bad within themselves, But (another big one) when they are the vehicle of our revelation instead of the confirmation of it, they become Idols and separate us from Jesus. When we are led by the Spirit and they strengthen our faith, by community, or affirmation of what we are hearing in our own spirits. They are wonderful tools, but tools offer no help, if the destiny we are building is off God’s blueprint for someone else. It took me a long time to get this…I can’t read my way to my destiny, I can’t listen my way to the mountain top of His purpose for my life. I must take up my cross and DIE, my calling is on the other side of my coffin (Luke 9:23).  It’s easier then we try to make it, we don’t need literature or long-winded pep talks…We need to encounter our Maker at the crucifixion of our own way. We need give up our quest to be something, and become nothing (John 3:30). Let’s let Jesus be transfigured in our hearts, from the image that others have created into who he actually is….Now again the question… How?

So again the answer is……The Mirror.

The Mirror of his pure, unadulterated, uninterrupted word, it will reflect who He is and who you are.  We are to be just a mirror image of Jesus Christ. When he shines His glorious light into our hearts we reflect it back into the darkness of our day (Matthew 5:16), and all the sudden we no longer have to describe how bad it is, because we now display how good He is, and His goodness will lead this world to repentance…to truth (Romans 2:4). That’s why God gave us the bible, because it doesn’t have a bad day, it doesn’t have its own agenda. It’s not pushing for royalty checks, or status and rank. It’s not concerned with the amount of people in the pews, or change in the offering. It is however dedicated to the change in our spirits.  Jesus said he did not come to bring peace, but a sword (Matthew 10:34)(Luke 2:35)(Ephesians 6:17). He came to bring the sword of the Spirit, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).

Sounds like a perfect mirror to me. On the other hand we have spent so much time gazing into this world’s “Fun House Mirror”, and we have created our identities based upon the distorted reflections it has shown us. Its “magic mirrors” have told our daughters that there value is equal to their bra size; it has told our sons that life is counted in the notches in their bed posts, or commas in their salary. It has displayed us as a handicapped humanity. It has defined us by the color of our skin, and the amount of letters after our names. Yet the mirror of Jesus’ word cuts through all of distortion, and reflects our created nature (Acts 17:29).  Have you ever seen the old 80’s milk commercials when a scrawny 90 pound pre-pubescent teen stands before a full size mirror and tells the homecoming queen cheerleader…that he might not be “much now”, but he’s drinking milk. And then the mirror displays a 250 pound, 3 percent body fat stud.

As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby,(1^st Peter 2:2).

I would say the same to all eyes gazing into the mirror of the words you just read. You might not be “much now” but keep drinking the milk of the word of God, let it nourish your troubled soul, and look into its mirror and see what you will be with the infilling of Gods unending grace (Hebrews 12:28). The Church might not be “much now”, but it will be pure and spotless at his coming.

The answer is in the Mirror of being honest with yourself, and picking up the only accessory that compliments the wardrobe of a warrior….His cross. The answer is in staring endlessly into the Mirror of His holy word and letting it transform you into a polished reflection of the brilliant light our Master longs to unleash into the shadows of the souls of men. And then we will be the enlightened ones who will shine truth into the recesses of refracting, rebellious, religion: the ones revealing who Jesus really is to this world.

Organic Christanity

\“This is the undiluted hope of the gospel, the good news of the organic opportunity to be his Holy and Spotless Bride.”

James 1:17 … [The] Father of lights, with whom there is NO VARIATION OR SHADOW OF TURNING.

John 14:30 …for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has NOTHING in Me.

We live in a world that screams that there are no absolutes. A world looking for shelter from its conscience, in the grey areas of life: the places between black and white truth; which excuse allegiance, and promote indecision. Right and Wrong have been replaced with the hybrid of tolerance and relativism. We are told to question everything, except those who tell us to question everything. Our new society condemns any who would define Truth in specific terms. Instead society chooses the path of appeasement, enabling its people to believe, that belief in nothing at all…amounts to something.

Morals and values are termed “Old Fashioned” in an attempt to belittle integrity and equate faith to fable.  The atmosphere of acceptance has settled over our spirits and minds like a thick fog, and seeing we no longer see, and hearing we no longer hear (Matt 13:13). We deify the frailty of our own understanding and follow our feelings; enthroning our assumption and theory in a kingdom of politically correct, blissful ignorance.  All the while agreeing only to bring one sacrifice to our alters: TRUTH.

Even religious people have become entangled with this perception creating one of the greatest industries the world has ever known…… the lukewarm church. We have mixed the worldview of the cold and callused with the fire of an eternal God, and end up a tepid institution with multiple personality disorder: dying from the disease we are supposed to be the cure for. We are intertwined within a spaghetti culture where reality suffocates under wishful thinking, and where Disney world optimism substitutes heavenly insight.

Instead of a pure, clean, organic Christianity, we subscribe to a brand containing our own man made additions; self-preservatives, religious fillers, and the artificial colorings of our own emotional hype. Our salt has lost its flavor (Mat 5:13), so we season our services with synthetic sermons, and imitation splenda-style sacrifice.  We substitute the grand Holiness of an organic God, with the empty “faith free”, god-zero variety of our own way, and wonder why in “taste-tastes”  (Psalms 34:8) we can’t compare. Our “diet-right” morality has crippled our cause, and our leaven additive (Mat 16:6), pseudo-spiritual, hype-injected version leaves us powerless and deceived.

But there is a better way. There is an Organic Christianity: a caged-free; Spirit-Fed style of intimacy with our creator. A true, all-natural, nothing added relationship with the God of all eternity is available to us all; it was paid for by the pure, sinless, holy blood of our Savior. He is the one and only absolute God who created the universe, who is all powerful, and all knowing, and still concerns himself with numbering the hairs on our head. A God who dwells in inapproachable light, with no variation or shadow of turning; lets discuss what this means.

To call something Organic means that it is undiluted, wholesome, and uncontaminated. God is just that, perfect. Jesus said the ruler of this world (Satan) is coming and he has NOTHING in me. Jesus was saying I am faultless, I am pure, I am untainted by anything evil. There is not a hint, a trace, a speck of anything other than good in God.  Jesus’ absolute power comes from his absolute purity. Just as the higher the octane of gasoline, the more power it provides, and the more concentrated a cleaner the greater its potency. The higher the proof the stronger the drink, the purer the gold the greater its value; the same is true of the character of our Lord; His supreme authority is a by-product of His supreme purity.

Thus contrasting and exposing the source of humanities hypocrisy, our weakness comes from the mixture of the mundane with the miraculous. Just as James says, a double minded man is unstable in all his ways (James 1:8), and fresh and bitter water can’t come from the same spring (James 3:11). The fusion of faith and fallacy is why we are not the church God intends us to be. We have a concocted blend of Christianity, combining relationship with Jesus with the rebellion of our own way, and in doing so have robbed our generation of the power and the presence that come from His purity.  That is why God hates lukewarmness, because it is in complete conflict with who He is. It is the hot fire of God being diluted by the cold sin of this world.

God uses no exaggeration when he speaks, in fact, He cannot. Remember God said “Let there be light” and light appeared. It is hard for us to understand this about God, because we are so different, but His words are His actions (Is 55:11). We can say one thing and then do another, but God is not a man that he should lie (Num 23:19, Tit 1:2, Heb 6:8). So when He says “Be Holy as I am Holy” (1Pet 1:15), and “Be Perfect as I am Perfect” (Mat 5:38) His grace is available to achieve this, or he would be denying he own, word which He cannot do (2Tim 2:13). The same God that brought light forth with a word says this: Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear (Hebrews 12:28). Jesus is saying His grace enables us to serve Him acceptably, His grace changes us from the lukewarm church that makes Him sick, to a glorious church that brings Him honor, and brings His uncompromised truth to every lost soul.

This is the undiluted hope of the gospel, the good news of the organic opportunity to be his Holy and Spotless Bride. To be “sin free” because He is “sin free”; it is not something we have earned or ever can earn.  It is the difference between the 87 octane unleaded of manmade religion and the righteous rocket fuel of a perfect God’s grace residing the tanks of our spirit. Our vehicles can go nowhere apart from the power of the fuel we impart to them. But ask yourself this next time you “pay the price” to fill up your car with the fuel it requires to reach its destination; how would you feel with the key turned in the ignition if nothing happen? You would call your vehicle broken but, our churches call it acceptable. The bible calls it clouds without rain, (Jude 1:12) advertising what they can’t deliver. It is having a form of godliness (being like God –literally holiness: Strong’s Dictionary) but denying it’s power (2Ti 2:15).We look like a vehicle that can drive the highway of holiness to our destiny, but we have mixed our sin with the purity of God and have “broken down on the side of the road”. Why? Because a little leaven, leavens the whole lump! Just like a little bad fuel corrupts the whole tank and stops us in our tracks. So we have the full measure of Jesus’ Spirit available to us, yet we can’t get “started’ to drive the evil from our communities, or transport the lost and hurting masses to their divine destination (even though the greatest price of all was already paid). The answer is to repent, to pour out of our hearts the idolatry, religion and rebellion that pollute our potential, and to be filled with the Organic Spirit Of God (Ephesians 5:18).

All things are possible to our Glorious God (Matthew 19:26). He is able to do more then we could ever think or imagine (Ephesians 3:30). Mountains could be moved if we would just believe (Matthew 17:20). He is offering us an infinite, limitless love affair with Him, to make us more than conquerors (Romans 8:37), to empower us to walk in undiluted Holiness right beside Him. Our decrypted world craves more than the, over processed, prepackaged, artificial answer we have given them. God is offering organic intimacy to anyone who will repent of the contamination inside of their heart. He has extended extravagant relationship to all who would deny the corrupted life of lukewarmness, and the pious pollution of our reprobate religion. We must cry aloud for our pretense to fall to His purity, and our filthiness to fade to His faithfulness; in doing so we will be full of the great grace, which gives us His divine nature to revolutionize this planet with His perfect presence.