Often, as I write in my office in the back yard of my home, I am spellbound by the small grey squirrels going about their daily antics. Especially in the fall, I watch them gathering and burying nuts from my big Pecan tree. All day long, they are zipping up and down that Pecan tree and scurrying off to bury their treasure, only to return and do it all over again - day after day.
Those little squirrels have no larger awareness of anything other than the business at hand. They are completely oblivious to the more sophisticated concerns. They are uncaring of new technologies, or historical trends, or environmental dangers, or questions surrounding their origin or existence or ultimate destiny. They are simply focused on gathering and burying nuts. For them, that's pretty much all there is - at least in the fall.
Fortunately, I'm pretty sure than in God's mind, this small minded self-sufficient attitude is entirely acceptable - in squirrels.
Accommodation Values
In essence, conversion to Christ is about an exchange of values. The new spiritual birth entirely revolves around a personal willingness to scrap our existing, very flawed value system and embrace the new values which Jesus brings to renew the believer. This is the underlying agreement at the center of every valid conversion to Christ.
And this eager willingness to embrace and implement a new value system, God’s value system, is what changes everything. This is the purest expression of redemptive faith and the truest form of humility before God.
And, this very elemental change is what leads to a true newness of life for the believer. And that real change in the fabric of our life is what gives validity to our redemptive message of newness through Christ to the surrounding community.
However, the modern American Church seems to have largely lost its expectation of a truly life changing encounter when it comes to Christ. And that is directly due to its loss of awareness of the central importance of this value system transformation. Rather, it is sadly evident that far too many modern believers have become dangerously comfortable with what might be called an "Accommodation Value System."
However, the modern American Church seems to have largely lost its expectation of a truly life changing encounter when it comes to Christ. And that is directly due to its loss of awareness of the central importance of this value system transformation. Rather, it is sadly evident that far too many modern believers have become dangerously comfortable with what might be called an "Accommodation Value System."
So, when it becomes challenging to hold to the godly the tendency is to simply ignore or discard those values to spare ourselves the discomfort. Thus, when the secular culture begins to pressure us on one issue or another, we simply cave, and allow the secular preferences to rule the day. We "accommodate" their wishes, at the great expense of Christ's.
Is it any wonder that the modern Church presently has so little renewing impact on the larger world. We have simply traded too much of our respectable substance for the world's extorted approval? Undeniably, such a process is arrogant and heavy-handed on the part of the secular world and cowardly on ours.
Nevertheless, it is true. We can, indeed, choose to abandon God's clearly expressed biblical values in the interest of some momentary social expedient. But, we cannot do so and expect to remain pleasing in His sight. And we cannot do so and continue to realistically expect to have any deep impact on our neighbors or the destiny of their souls.
And, in fact, at the point of a value sell-out where we so easily throw away the divine values, we should start to be seriously concerned about the destiny of our own soul. After all, as believers, we were divinely commissioned to be the "salt" of the earth, And, according to scripture, our practical worth is actually bound up in our faithfulness to that divine commission.
The Anticipations of The Divine Love
It’s Sunday! The Creator greets this sacred day with true anticipation. He envisions a new and vibrant encounter with His children in the sanctuary.
In the exuberance of His love, like some “Christmas Parent,” the Heavenly Father waits for His bubbling children to come bouncing happily home again to His enveloping embrace.
Even before the sun is able to dispel the darkness, the Divine Heart starts to anticipate the possibilities of this day. And, irresistibly, the divine hope begins to rise.
Nevertheless, the divine wisdom forces the Creator to silence in the knowing that, sometimes, even He must simply wait and see. And so, He does – every Sunday morning.
