"Truly my soul waiteth upon God; from Him cometh my salvation. [...] Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie. To be weighed in the balance, they are altogether lighter than a breath. [...] God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this, that power belongeth to God." Ps. 62: 1, 9, 11
"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." II Corinthians 4:18
It's easy to get caught up in temporary things. Besides the fact that they are what is "seen" (and thus more readily relatable), there is also nothing inherently wrong with them. The only time that they go wrong is when they are given precedent over what is eternal, and yet we do this all the time. The whole of the truly modern age (right up to our current choking fog of the post-modern swamp) can be quite accurately defined as a time of treating temporal things as fundamental and necessary while treating eternal things as superficial and trivial. "Please," we cry, "don't bother troubling us about our souls or whatnot. Just wake us up when the latest cultural/political/ideological fad or fashion rides by so we can jump on its bandwagon." To paraphrase Lewis, we are far too easily amused and distracted.
Christians don't escape from this problem either. The whole of Modern Christendom can be quite succinctly described as one long, horrendous fashion show, with every single item being a mere retread of what the world had already paraded out with much better ability last year. As the blood-bought children of God, we are the unworthy (and therefore humbled) recipients of the deep, eternal truths of God, and yet we keep traipsing across the world's stage like a pathetic johnny-come-lately to every secular and worldly stage show under the sun. We are supposed to be leading all men unto Christ and into the fear of the Lord, and yet the best that we do today is to teach everyone how to be moral, amiable apathetics courtesy of our Christian knock-off versions of self-help guides and practical advice columns.
What's even worse is that we're not only mimicking the world concretely, but also abstractly, taking its philosophies and ideologies and merging them with Christianity in a most unholy union. As sudden as a winter evening, "faith" now equals "doubt," and all the rich teachings and history of the Christian Faith are summarily declared stupid. Faith itself becomes wholly subjective, having been violently cut from all objectivity, until it means absolutely nothing precisely because it means anything. On all counts, we look and sound and feel so much like the world and all of its vacuous and counterfeit pleasures and promises that we render the gospel and all of God's truth utterly impotent. The world assumes a priori that we have nothing to say that they haven't already heard before and better from the mouths of their own prophets and preachers.
I don't want to be well-adjusted. I don't want to know how to balance my checkbook or work the stock market. I don't want to be amiable or moral or decent. I don't want to "just get along." I don't want psychotherapy, anti-depressants, or self-help tips from people as fallen as myself. I don't want a "dialogue" or "conversation." I don't want to be represented. I don't want another agenda, fashion, or fad. I don't want to be where truth is not allowed to "colonize the space." I don't want to hear your subjective opinions or experiences. I don't want me subjectivity to be cut from that which is objectively real and true. I will tell you what I want. I will tell you what the world really wants, what it has always wanted, and what Christianity has always had to give to it. I want to know if there is a God, and if He can be known, if He can know me, and how. I want to know if repentance and forgiveness are real and capable of doing away with real sin and real guilt, that grace is truly greater than all my sin. I want truth to not only "colonize the space" but also colonize all of me, filling me up like blood and air and water and food. I want abundant life and life everlasting. I want to be consumed by the fire of the God who is there. I want to love God like a man loves a woman, to be enraptured and intoxicated by Him always, to want to protect Him from His enemies and myself. I want that which is solid and real, timeless and eternal, something that has sustained those before me and will sustain those after me. Give me God and all that He is or else I will perish, and that without remedy.
All these things and more are offered as unflinching and unapologetic objective truths and realities by the Christian Faith to all people regardless of their experiences or circumstances. Is that the message that the world hears, though? Is that what the Church even hears? I'm afraid not. The Faith begun by the Incarnate God of the universe has been made by its followers into an impotent side-show act. May the Lord have mercy on us all.
"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." II Corinthians 4:18
It's easy to get caught up in temporary things. Besides the fact that they are what is "seen" (and thus more readily relatable), there is also nothing inherently wrong with them. The only time that they go wrong is when they are given precedent over what is eternal, and yet we do this all the time. The whole of the truly modern age (right up to our current choking fog of the post-modern swamp) can be quite accurately defined as a time of treating temporal things as fundamental and necessary while treating eternal things as superficial and trivial. "Please," we cry, "don't bother troubling us about our souls or whatnot. Just wake us up when the latest cultural/political/ideological fad or fashion rides by so we can jump on its bandwagon." To paraphrase Lewis, we are far too easily amused and distracted.
Christians don't escape from this problem either. The whole of Modern Christendom can be quite succinctly described as one long, horrendous fashion show, with every single item being a mere retread of what the world had already paraded out with much better ability last year. As the blood-bought children of God, we are the unworthy (and therefore humbled) recipients of the deep, eternal truths of God, and yet we keep traipsing across the world's stage like a pathetic johnny-come-lately to every secular and worldly stage show under the sun. We are supposed to be leading all men unto Christ and into the fear of the Lord, and yet the best that we do today is to teach everyone how to be moral, amiable apathetics courtesy of our Christian knock-off versions of self-help guides and practical advice columns.
What's even worse is that we're not only mimicking the world concretely, but also abstractly, taking its philosophies and ideologies and merging them with Christianity in a most unholy union. As sudden as a winter evening, "faith" now equals "doubt," and all the rich teachings and history of the Christian Faith are summarily declared stupid. Faith itself becomes wholly subjective, having been violently cut from all objectivity, until it means absolutely nothing precisely because it means anything. On all counts, we look and sound and feel so much like the world and all of its vacuous and counterfeit pleasures and promises that we render the gospel and all of God's truth utterly impotent. The world assumes a priori that we have nothing to say that they haven't already heard before and better from the mouths of their own prophets and preachers.
I don't want to be well-adjusted. I don't want to know how to balance my checkbook or work the stock market. I don't want to be amiable or moral or decent. I don't want to "just get along." I don't want psychotherapy, anti-depressants, or self-help tips from people as fallen as myself. I don't want a "dialogue" or "conversation." I don't want to be represented. I don't want another agenda, fashion, or fad. I don't want to be where truth is not allowed to "colonize the space." I don't want to hear your subjective opinions or experiences. I don't want me subjectivity to be cut from that which is objectively real and true. I will tell you what I want. I will tell you what the world really wants, what it has always wanted, and what Christianity has always had to give to it. I want to know if there is a God, and if He can be known, if He can know me, and how. I want to know if repentance and forgiveness are real and capable of doing away with real sin and real guilt, that grace is truly greater than all my sin. I want truth to not only "colonize the space" but also colonize all of me, filling me up like blood and air and water and food. I want abundant life and life everlasting. I want to be consumed by the fire of the God who is there. I want to love God like a man loves a woman, to be enraptured and intoxicated by Him always, to want to protect Him from His enemies and myself. I want that which is solid and real, timeless and eternal, something that has sustained those before me and will sustain those after me. Give me God and all that He is or else I will perish, and that without remedy.
All these things and more are offered as unflinching and unapologetic objective truths and realities by the Christian Faith to all people regardless of their experiences or circumstances. Is that the message that the world hears, though? Is that what the Church even hears? I'm afraid not. The Faith begun by the Incarnate God of the universe has been made by its followers into an impotent side-show act. May the Lord have mercy on us all.
-Jon Vowell
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