Christianity (continued)

[phareztamar]

The Bible reminds me of the layers of an onion. You first come to the dry, ugly outer skin. It holds no nutritional value, serving only as a protective coating. This part of the onion is simply discarded. Here is the Bible’s disdain to the many who reject it out of hand. They love the world, work, money, fun, and material things. Yes, God still loves every one of them. But these folks find the bible lacking any nutritional value. Their lives are going just fine without it.
Just beneath the skin, all good cooks throw away the next two or three layers of the onion. While not as dry as the skin, these still lack the crisp vitality of the onion’s heart. It is here, in these two or three layers, that today’s 2 billion Christian’s dwell. It’s the surface story … the lessons on morality … the cool proverbial sayings … the hero’s and zero’s of scripture … leadership values … quirks of human nature … life’s victories, failures, and golden rules. It doesn’t take the baptism of the Holy Ghost, or His daily guidance, to benefit from such classics as: A good name is better than precious ointment … and again: Give, and it shall be given unto you …, and a thousand more like these. It is to the glory of God, that his Word is so bountiful, the entire Christian world can survive, thrive, and grow to over 2 billion souls from just these two or three disposable layers. No knife required. No prayer, no fasting, and no spiritual labor or guidance necessary. A veritable playground for the goodness of mans soul.
In the Old testament, God would make his presence known in a tabernacle chamber called the ”Holy of Holies”. This wasn’t some roadside inn, open to any traveler passing by. There was ritual, sacrifice, and procedure to be followed…after you passed through an army. The gold, silver, and jewels of the Earth aren’t scattered on the surface of our grassy meadows. There is excavation, refining, and work involved to obtain them. So it is with finding the strait gate, amongst so many gates. But its so worth the work. On the other side of that gate, the narrow way awaits. It’s an extraordinary path, filled with the poetry of creation, and the nuggets of God’s Word. These things are not for the casual. They aren’t stumbled upon accidentally. There is intense desire and work involved. Salvation is free, but it will cost you your life. His treasures lay just beyond an altar of death, a burial of the past, and an infusion of resurrection life. Finding them requires a life of prayer and communion with the Author of life. It requires times of fasting and meditating on God’s living Word; spiritual hunger, spiritual sensitivity, and spiritual passion. And perhaps most important of all, communing with the Master of the universe requires a working knowledge of man’s soul, man’s spirit, and God’s spirit.
These commodities have disappeared from the landscape before you. We’ve replaced them with liturgical chants, rosary beads, Christian novels, the prayer breakfast, televangelism, and a scripted service on Sunday and Wednesday. Seminaries grind men and women through years of rigorous Bible studies. Yet not once have they tasted of the living waters. Libraries overflow with commentaries of what the Bible means. But there is no quickening. Blockbuster themes from scripture sprout like weeds here in the last days. The “Left Behind” series, the “Purpose Driven Life” series, the “Prayer of Jabez” series, and so many more like them. These works are brilliant and well researched, as evidenced by their sales. But in the end, they are but the best efforts of flesh, appealing to a carnal marketplace. They require no real spiritual work to prepare, nor to digest or implement. They are the soul and wisdom of man, at his very best. Disposable layers of the onion. No knife required.
Christianity has devolved into this watered down imitation of the original. But at least we’ve drawn a line in the sand. Over the years, we’ve crafted what we call the “essentials of the Christian faith “. If you meet this criteria, your group is dubbed Christian. These are the entrance requirements, to join the crowd beneath the umbrella. If you don’t uphold these essentials, you’re simply not Christian. You’re a cult or a sect. Once you’ve qualified as Christian, the non-essentials of the faith are unimportant. We call it latitude…diversity…the various flavors of God’s church. But your group must meet all of the essentials to qualify. They define Christianity today. They draw the umbrellas boundaries…and determine its perimeters. And who is it that decided these guidelines? Who drew the dividing line between true and false Christians? Actually, it was a consortium of scholars we fondly refer to as the “pillars of the faith.“ The Wesleys’, Luthers’, Henrys’, Spurgeons’, and Whitfields’ of old. John Knox, Irenaeus, Augustine, A’Kempis, and names without number. These all played a part, as the church evolved, in deciding for you and I today, which beliefs are Christian, and which are not. The “essentials of the Christian faith” were established early on, and have grown to become standards above questioning.
Why then, should you dare question such time-honored foundations? Well, for one thing; however great these men were…they were men. None would argue their success, their zeal, or their sincerity. Their vaults of knowledge and research have been handed down for generations. To most, these pillars of the faith have all become Christian icons. But again, at the end of the day, they were men.
Secondly, the stakes here are quite high. Truth, life more abundantly, and heaven for starters. To me, these two reasons alone are cause enough, to be a little bit Berean here. We should make sure these honorable father’s of Christianity had it right. Muster all of God’s overlapping truths, and so examine these men. We have no problem doing this with Mohammed…who’s deceived well over a billion souls…or Joseph Smith, or Sun Myung Moon, or any number of others we deem outside the fold.
But for us, here at the ragged end of time, there is a third, much more compelling reason. A reason why we must qualify the qualifiers of truth and error. That simple reason is, that history does repeat itself. Satan strikes at beginnings. The bloodline of the human race, was poisoned with the law of sin at its very beginning; in the garden, not here at the end. Every embryo is infected at its beginning, before blood production begins. The debacle at Ai followed right on the heels of Jericho, as Joshua and the kids began taking the promised land. Even the Christ had his wilderness battle at the beginning of His ministry. History say’s that Satan chooses to strike at the root…at the beginning. Why would the birth and infancy of the church be any different? Did we really think the enemy was sleeping?