Numbers - ironically, numbers
were once such an easy issue for the Church. In the early Church,
according to scripture, “multitudes” responded to the good news of Christian
redemption. And, this was true even though that early redemptive message
was quite challenging to the hearers. As it actually still does today,
the Gospel of Christ required them to go from being the masters of their own
life, to becoming joyfully humble servants, surrendered to the Lordship of
Christ.
And, as they bowed to that
redemptive requirement, over time, a greater truth emerged. Turns out,
this necessary humiliation, this servanthood, was, in fact, essential to the
workings of the divine plan for the thorough renewal of the believer’s heart
(character essence) and lifestyle realities. And, that renewal was key to God’s
ultimate redemptive end game: a deep, durable, and mutually fulfilling God/man
friendship.
And, in fact, this
transformative process which grows that “new creature in Christ” can only
happen in that rarified atmosphere of a profound humility before God. We
typically just refer to that special relational environment as “redemptive
faith.” Indeed this relational atmosphere provides what an environment of
arrogance and self-determination never could – endurance.
And, endurance is needed to get
through this transformative process. This is no casual walk in the park
we are talking about. It is a challenging aspiration which a haughty
heart could never tolerate for long.
This is the focused pursuit of a
spiritual merger with the Living Christ by which His empowering character
essence literally becomes integrated with that of the believer. And,
flowing out of that resulting symbiotic relationship then comes a divine
overwrite of the believer’s value system which yields a whole new body of
life-altering divine truth.
And, from this now fresh
and growing heart-oneness with God, enabled and sustained in the empowering
sufficiency of the Living Christ, springs that long sought divine prize.
It is that now very real, deep, durable, and mutually fulfilling God/man
friendship – fully initialized, and ready to shower both God and the believer
with its every day blessings.
So, this is that authentic
redemptive journey which those early “multitudes” so willingly took
on and successfully completed. Indeed, this is that thoroughly renewing
path, blazed by the work of both the Dying and the Living Christ, which not
only frees believers from the clutches of the Darkness, but from their own
disabling brokenness as well – just as God always intended.
But sadly, by this late
hour in history and due entirely to the work of the Darkness, this authentic
redemptive path has become much more obscured by other deceptive and misleading
pathways. And many now succumb to the charms of those simpler and less
demanding paths. And, the prevalence of those dark charms has actually
had the effect of casting a long shadow of rejection over this true path.
Thus many contemporary
believers are now lacking that excitement and passion that fired those early
believers to complete their redemptive transformation. The reality
is that the rank and file of the contemporary Church, and specifically the
American Evangelical Church under all of its varied banners have, indeed,
become widely reluctant to move beyond the idea of merely a “Forgiveness
Redemption.”
But that wondrous Cross of
the Dying Christ and the forgiveness which it affords, is but the trailhead of
the redemptive path which God has actually laid out. According to His
authentic redemptive mapping, there is a final leg of this journey which
reaches well beyond that Cross and involves that empowering encounter with the
Living Christ which transforms the believer.
So, enabled and sustained by
the shared vibrancy of the Living Christ living within, the believer
experiences this personal transformation. And, it is, indeed, a spiritual
journey which brings real newness to his or her heart (character essence) and
lifestyle realities. And, contrary to that now widely popular mistake –
this trans-formative part of our redemptive journey is absolutely not optional.
God is seeking to achieve a
“thorough reclamation” of his fallen and badly broken human creature. And,
He will not have that expensive, long sought, and blessed end-result preempted
by human reluctance, timidity, laziness, ignorance or any other such
thing. The divine redemptive design is firmly established. And
either we match its specifications or we perish in our own mistaken choices.
Simplistic and easy is one
redemptive approach. But the pursuit of a thorough personal
transformation in the power of the Living Christ is an immeasurably better
one. It actually brings God’s real approval and the believer’s true
newness and ultimate success.
But it is true that the
contemporary Church is now struggling with this larger idea of redemption in
the pew. And this is also true of the pulpit and the administrative
ranks of the Church. We would all like to believe that our message is
accurate and sacrosanct – inalterable, no matter how high the level of real
world pressures might get.
And, as ministers of God’s
redemptive truth, we would hope that any reluctance of contemporary
congregations to hear and respond to this more challenging truth would not
quell our willingness to energetically proclaim it. But is all of this
still as true as it once was?
In this time when the Church
is widely numerically challenged in key places: conversions, membership,
attendance, and connected finances etc., might we now be bowing to the tyranny
of those growing numerical pressures? These pressures are very real in
the modern Church. And, they do have a far reaching and often
excruciating influence.
For example, if this more
challenging but truly authentic message has now become widely more than this
contemporary church is willing to embrace, except to the level of casual lip
service, might we then simply resort to exploring less challenging truth (which
is also of much less import)? Or might we become willing to morph our
pulpit ministry into something more like helpful life-couching? And all of
this, in the interest of surreptitiously protecting our numbers and our
continuing ability to sustain and/or grow them.
Or, might those
number based pressures drive us to allow less altruistic concerns to begin to
weigh in on our thinking and behavior? The ebb and flow of those critical
numbers can and does exert an often relentless pressure on a ministerial heart.
So, maybe a numbers threat
to our personal validation, comfort level, credibility, job security, or our
prospects regarding that ministerial “ladder climb” might begin to have some impact.
Perhaps we might begin to soft-peddle or just avoid this more stringent message
altogether, in the face of less receptive modern congregations.
As a Church
administrative leader under the press of this numerical tyranny, might we
be tempted to back off in order to remain more palatable, and thus more
relevant, to the larger world and/or the growing shallowness of our
constituency? Or, maybe, in this case, we would start to refrain from
ever critically juxtaposing our authentic message of redemption with those
heretical competitors. And this, so we could maintain our personal and
our denominational image as thoughtful and attractive men and women of peace –
thus, alienating no one (or changing any hearts or minds) in deference to the
numbers and the perceptions they demand.
But, be all of that as it
may, the actual reality is that in most every church in the land there are now
those who are dangerously under invested in their own redemption – and
blissfully happy to be so. Truth be told, a great many among our modern
multitudes now demand that this Living Christ-fueled renewal process be, at the
very least, toned way down. And often, the greater preference is that it
be left entirely unmentioned.
And, this preference for
shallowness has, indeed, now become broadly embraced across the American
Evangelical Church as being the acceptable norm. And, in fact, it is this
widespread and completely deadly mistake which has also set up a presently
raging negotiation within the modern Church.
But this is no mere heated
back and forth between differing theologians. This is a life and death
involved negotiation between the divine Truth Giver, the Holy Spirit, and those
deluded, wayward, and/or terminally misguided hearts within this contemporary
Church. And how could it not be so? Jesus described the role of the
Holy Spirit this way. “He will guide you into all truth.”
So, when and wherever the
Divine Spirit encounters this deadly predilection for shallowness and
under-investment on the part of believers, be it in the pew, the pulpit, or the
higher administrations of the Church, what else would He do, can He do, but
take adamant issue with such. So, He begins to intensely negotiate
with that believer in his or her heart. Again, He simply cannot do less.
Therefore, at such a point,
the Spirit’s whispering voice makes every effort to convince the believer to
embrace and/or proclaim this real and thorough newness of heart and life in the
Living Christ. The New Testament explains that this is our confirming
witness which affirms to the world, Christ’s genuineness and absolute efficacy
as the Savior of the world.
Nevertheless, this Holy
Spirit intervention, however it goes, ever remains a negotiation. It is
necessarily never an irresistible demand. The believer’s level of
devotion is always left to decide the outcome of these interventions.
And, many do resist these urgings by the Divine Spirit.
But if they refuse, or
suppress, or in other ways seek to escape His loving encouragement to lean into
this Living Christ-empowered completion, they will absolutely have to do so
repeatedly. Obviously, believers can grieve the Holy Spirit with our willful
stubbornness. And, this is certainly a possibility in these redemptive
negotiations. But, in fact, if we do so, it is at the risk of our very
soul.
So, the Spirit is ever
faithful to return again and again to attempt to achieve this crucial
enlightenment. But unfortunately, this is also the case. Our
willful stubbornness can also be as perpetual as His faithful love, a reality
which can seal our doom.
Nevertheless, the pews, the
pulpits, and the Church administrations all across this contemporary Church are
now absolutely alight with the intellectual and emotional sparks generated by these
intense, life-and-death, personal negotiations with the Divine Spirit.
And, indeed, countless under-invested souls hang in the balance, as they now
carelessly and/or callously ignore the simple and still completely defining
implication of the very first commandment.
Those “First Words” still
clearly describes precisely what God has perpetually sought from mankind.
And, indeed, this admonition still clearly conveys the authentic redemptive
outcome which He is seeking to achieve through the redemptive work of Christ.
It is still His simple intent that each of us should truly “love
the Lord your God with all your heart.”
But, in that regard, the
reality, which our now long human history of failure puts in stark relief, is
this. This the first commandment can only truly be fulfilled in the
borrowed power of the Living Christ, as He literally enables within the
believer, a strong and consistent love of God.
The early Church, then, had it
right. Just embrace, pursue, and proclaim the promise and the beauty of
this heart-and-life transforming redemptive message. And then, make sure
that every person makes their own redemptive decision in the light of our
confirming and credible witness – a testimony rendered in the real terms of our
own Living Christ-empowered newness. That being faithfully done, at the
end of the day, the numerical tally of the truly redeemed will be
correct.
Truly, as His witnesses,
it is infinitely better to be appreciated for the whole redemptive truth which
we faithfully embrace and proclaim, than to be defined by the willingness to
abandon that more challenging part.
