The version of God where you live your best life now does not exist.
There is no best life on this earth. We are here to save the lost, not have the thing that we want, so we can say we’re living the blessed life. We’re created beings designed to glorify His name, despite all things good and bad on this earth. There will be moments of weeping and laughing, but we are here not only to survive this fallen world, but to be sanctified by it, and love God more richly by truly knowing Him.
I am undone, and don’t understand this world. As Isaiah said, “I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people who also have unclean lips.” And while I understand the nature of my depravity, I struggle with how we operate in this world, as if everything is ours, and nothing has consequence. It’s just from one day to the next, as if we know the mysteries of the planet. As if the afterlife is a mere suggestion to balance our sense of purpose.
I fear this complacency, I fear the truth of scripture, and that we will be caught in a moment of revelation without taking stock of the world. But it’s a nice day out, and we need to go on a hike, or take a road trip, or go pick flowers…I see that we’re supposed to enjoy the world God has created for us, but we are sitting on a powder keg of comfort.
This smiling, diluted, candy-coated Western version of Christianity is void of truth, perspective, and understanding of God. We forget Him at the sign of anything temporally satisfying to the senses. A moment of distraction to keep us numb to the reality of this world coming to an end. As I’m sitting here writing this, it’s a lovely day, and I hear cars buzzing by, motorcycles blaring terrible music, people walking to the local brewery, people running, or walking their dogs, and I can’t help but think, do these people know God? Do they see Him and love Him?
There is a fire that breathes into my lungs and consumes me. It says, wake up, and see yourself, see the truth, and turn to Him.
Before it ends.
We are a nation of empty prayers, vanity, and performative faith. We need the experimental God. A God we can operate on and manipulate for our gain. A God who is our everything, because we want a blessing, not because we want Him.
The wickedness that lives in us is pervasive and binary. From the dawn of time, we’ve served ourselves and our wicked desires.
We need the comfort, the donuts, and the fog machines during worship. We need to “experience” Jesus, but experiencing Jesus is not knowing Him. Prime example, you can have an on-the-field experience before a football game, or a track day experience in a racecar. Both of those things do something and nothing. They give you an exciting time, but do not fundamentally make you a football player or racecar driver. It’s experiential marketing, designed to boost dopamine and make you feel connected.
And that is what the modern church is doing, experiential faith-based marketing, which collapses under the weight of life’s assured suffering, anguish, or unrealized dreams.
What happens when we fall into spiritual tyranny is that we seek to explain away scripture to serve our needs and be comfortable in our denominations. We get angry when someone says, “The Bible says”. We fight every aspect of biblical truth and pick apart the word to make our lives consistent with what we feel as truth, but the Lord says pick up your cross, and follow Him, not pick up your cross if you feel like it, or pick up your cross and follow me if it makes you feel good.
Whoever gains his life will lose it, but we don’t want to lose anything, do we?
We seek solutions from God, not truth.
Granted, we don’t all have the same path to Christ. Some find Him without fanfare or melodrama, and some need to be broken beyond belief and rebuilt, but the marked testimony of transformation is praising God because He is near…and even if we don’t have the relief in this life we think we deserve, we still see a merciful and gracious God.
A God who cares and understands, because He is close to the brokenhearted, and He knows His children.
A prayer for the lost and His people
My God in heaven, thank you for this word, and this world you have created for us to proclaim your glory. Please empower us to spread the gospel boldly to the lost, and show your believers the way through this pit of despair masked in platitudes. Set your people ablaze, Father. Kill our pride and vanity, my Lord. Let us not forget you on sunny days, or hide you away in the winter. Stay near to us, Father. Please speak to your people, convict their hearts, and churn their spirits to follow you closely. My God, I cannot see beyond my ache for your people.
Let us read and wonder about the things in heaven, and how we can glorify your name until we are called home. Let us examine our hearts and minds, that we may turn our eyes toward you, and not towards this world. A world that gives us everything we think we want, in exchange for all that we could ever have. Eternity awaits us, my precious Lord. May we know you more fully, and learn to justly love and obey you more and more each day. Amen.