Jan 14, 2018

No Refuge In The Fog

In The Book of the Revelation, the last book of the Holy Bible, Jesus spoke of a time to come in the life of the Church when its people would be widely marked by the trait of “lukewarmness.”  Surely, these are those times; and, we are those people.  The modern Church does not see itself that way, of course.  But, that is only because of the blindness created by the present theological fog in which we hide.

We cultivate that fog by minimizing our personal investment of time and energy in the careful verification of redemptive truth.  Rather, we choose to be quite satisfied with the limited and second-hand information which the pastor or Sunday school teacher offers – which they also typically got second-hand from someone else.  

Listening to a lecture is just much quicker and easier, than verifying for yourself, right?  And, since we’re not really that interested in delving too far into the matter, anyway (for fear that we might discover more than we really want to) it works out very nicely to just go with that quick-and-easy, second-hand approach.

So, here we are, the rank and file of the modern Church, largely living blissfully unaware of the true intricacies of our faith and the sophisticated expectations of our Creator.  And, in the seeming safety of this convenient fog of mind, we simply busy ourselves with whatever is our personal brand of “busy-ness.”   And, without the burden of any significant divine requirements upon our life, what else is there to do but focus on our own favored fascinations while we wait for all of this to be over. 

And, if we do occasionally suffer a twinge of “maybe I should draw closer to God and delve deeper,” then we simply resort to the cure for all such heart pricks.  We merely reassure ourselves in the knowledge that most everyone around us is also cloaking themselves in this same insulating fog of theological vagueness

But, here’s the kicker.  When all of this is finally over, and we think to offer our ignorance to God as a defense against any divine recriminations for our failure to invest at the proper level, we will discover something.  In that final terrifying moment when we stand in that deadly serious space between this life and eternity, it will be made very clear that the fog of ignorance actually offers to us no refuge at all.  And, how could it?  Since, in the Living Christ, true enlightenment is readily available to every believer.

The great lie of our times is that redemption requires essentially no significant investment on the part of the believer.  In truth, redemption requires everything of the believer.  And, pulling the theological covers over your head in an attempt to make that reality go away is a huge mistake akin to mixing your metaphors.  You just should never, never do it. 

“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save [keep control of] his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose [surrender control of] his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”- Jesus   [Brackets added]