I keep asking myself when did the month of December get to be so busy.....and so stressful? I keep thinking if there are some things I can stop doing to make it less so, but when I begin doing that, I feel guilty. After all, this is supposed to be a time of giving and charity (love) to our fellow-man. Right? So much of that requires time, on my part. Then there are obligations and some times I don't know if I'm coming, going, or just in some kind of alternate reality. By the end of what I've come to call "Nutcracker Week" I'll be nearly comatose. Factor in school activities/parties/and the drama class production of A Christmas Carol, and well, let's just say that it's no wonder I have a hard time keeping myself focused on Who the Reason for the Season is all about. I do try! Honestly. Mostly through things that aren't what I label "busy work" like all the church stuff. I get more joy from all of the non-church volunteer projects I've been involved in. Sad. But true. I really don't think I "fit in" with the churchianity mentality, but I'm ok with that.
It's a sad fact. It's bad enough when it's just the Nutcracker, but this year it's even more stressful due to too many things happening the same week. My church has scheduled a Christmas concert on Thursday night, caroling on Friday night, a youth Christmas breakfast on Sunday morning, a Christmas Cantata on Sunday night, a youth group Scavenger hunt on Monday morning, and the Pastor's Open House on Thursday night. I think that's all. I can't do it.
When did "service" to Jesus become "activities?" In my opinion we'd do much more in Jesus' name if our church went to serve at the homeless shelter food kitchen. Bleh! I don't even like thinking like this, even though I truly believe that the church has left it's first love. Our first love should be Christ, and Christ's first love was people....the poor, rejected, outcasts of the world. He ran with the party crowd: the whores, tax cheats, blue-collar redneck types, the diseased (lepers), those who were physically handicapped or blind, and the demon possessed...and if we have the love of Christ we should be ministering in a real hands-on way, to people. I just don't think that singing in a cantata or being in a scavenger hunt is of the same merit as actually serving the kind of needy people Jesus ministered to. Jesus always met their physical needs before meeting their spiritual needs. Satan has effectively quarantined the church; totally removed it from the society to which it's supposed to be the shining City on a Hill. Sadly, we've bought it, hook, line, and sinker. I can count on one hand (and still have fingers left over) the churches that I know who personally minister to the kind of people that society looks down on. Where do we get off with the idea that just because we "give money" or support to an organization, that THAT lets us off the hook to be the hands and feet of Jesus to the dregs of society? Show me, please.
I don't really know how the Enemy has succeeded. Perhaps what Bro. Rick says is right....we've had it too good for too long. I recently read that people are drawn to dead churches because it makes them feel better about their own dysfunction. Since when do we want to feel better about our dysfunction? What I see is that there's a generation who doesn't understand the power of being addicted to a legitimate substance (Hebrews 11:1) and we waste our time burning for illegitimate things. Jesus was, IS, and forever will be, the most magnetic force humanity has ever experienced. Has anyone else ever walked up to random strangers and said, "Come. Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.", and perfectly sane men dropped their fishing nets and followed a man that they did not know? Religiously cleansed Levitical priests didn't see who He was, but lepers did; the Sanhedrin didn't follow Jesus, but whores did. The Pharisees couldn't see who Jesus was, but blind men did....men who couldn't see anything knew that what they needed was passing them by as Jesus walked away. And they followed Him. How do blind men follow anything? Or anyone? Yet they did. Right into a house of someone they didn't know. Talk about crossing the societal standards on etiquette and propriety. They were so desperate to be in His presence that they crossed the threshold of impropriety and societal mores. Religion creates "lines" = what is acceptable and unacceptable. Society doesn't mind if you're a Christian so long as you stay "inside" the lines. That's the whole thing behind the bias against Tim Tebow. He doesn't stay inside the "religious lines." He crosses their lines each and every time he kneels to pray on the sidelines of a football field. If he were practicing any other religion the bias and mockery would not be tolerated, nor accepted. The difference is that Tebow's faith is in Jesus. People who have encounters with religion will NEVER understand people who have had an encounter with Jesus. Jesus. He still intimidates and crosses the lines some 2000+ years later. The moment our Christianity becomes confrontational, it in actuality becomes Christianity. When our faith ceases to be confrontational we can take Christ out of the equation and it just becomes religion then. How can you have a non-confrontational Christianity? The essence of the entire concept is Christ: the most controversial person in the history of the world.
I can only speak for myself, but I want more. More Jesus. I want to see Him work, not only IN me, but THRU me. It's weird, but sometimes it's like I'm a Jesus junkie and I can't wait for the next high. The more Jesus I get, the more I want. I can't explain it, and I have to admit that I wish this was something I felt every day; it isn't. Some days it's a plateau; others, a valley. Yet, I know God has put me on this planet to engage in a game of Divine Tag! If what happened to me, happens to you, you'll get crazy too! Tag! You're IT!
L8R Dayz,
Starr
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