Hurt so Good

Morning,

For those of you who are putting all your eggs in the red basket of last Tuesday I just want you to be aware that the red basket is only a different color than the blue basket. Nothing has changed and I mean nothing. America hasn’t fallen on its knees in repentance. It has not sought to humble itself before the living God. America is still full of Ann Rice like followers of Christ and rejectors of Christianity. It is still a nation that seeks after a Jesus made in its own image.

The fact is that if the red basket brings us economic recovery (which is highly unlikely) more cash in our pockets will only cause to harden our hearts more. Historically, just about the only thing that brings a nation to repentance is pain, suffering, and discomfort. America is the most comfortable nation in the world right now. That ought to make the picture pretty clear.

You see unless the church repents our nation really has no hope of recovery. I don’t know why I said “you see” at the beginning of that last sentence because when it boils down to it we don’t want to see. We want to be blind so we can keep on going the way we’re going only with steadier cash flow and less responsibility for our health. We just want to be taken care of. See even the red basket would take health care if we didn't have to pay for it.

We’ve got the cart before the horse these days thinking that we can restore our nation back to its original glory without the inconvenience of rebuilding the foundation upon which it was built. It’s kind of like an alcoholic who thinks he can drink himself to sobriety. I guess you probably would get sober after you died but you wouldn’t know it now would you?

The problem in our nation isn’t the economy, it isn’t the war in all the various countries in which we are fighting, it isn’t the gays, it isn’t greed, it isn’t murder of babies in the womb. The problem is the church.

The problem is that the church doesn’t believe in God, at least not the whole God; they believe in maybe a quarter of God. The other three quarters they fashion in their own image. But you see, contrary to Ann Rice the bible in its entirety is a revelation of who God is. I know that is unpopular with the new higher criticism, follow Jesus and not the bible crowd or the New Testament but not the Old Testament crowd. But unpopular doesn’t make un-true.

I know that believing such a thing will not get me an honorary doctorate from most seminaries and unfortunately that is part of the problem. We have educated ourselves into idolatry much the same way the Pharisees and Sadducees did 2100 years ago. We have traded God for academic acceptance, cultural acceptance and celebrity status. We want to look good in the eyes of our faculty peers, the media, and the movers and shakers therefore we exchange the truth for a lie and ride it all the way to the bank.

What is it going to take to humble the church this time around? I think the book of Judges is a perfect book for our times. Over and over again we read: And a generation arose that did not know the Lord. If you haven’t figured it out that means that a generation arose in the church, in the religious establishment that did not know the Lord. They were going to church just like they always did, maybe even more than the generation before them, they loved religion but they didn’t know the Lord. To get their attention God would put them in some kind of bondage for 20 or 40 years until they felt the consequences of their idolatry and then when they cried out to the God they didn’t know he would deliver them.

Why should we expect life to be any different? Because we live in a fantasy land where we think only about a quarter of the word of God applies to us. God is a God of love and grace he would never pour out covenant curses on his people. Tell that to Jerusalem in 79 AD. Of Course we are the determiners of what love and grace should look like right. We wrote the bible we can re-write it right? Only in our wildest dreams.

What if biblical love and grace look like a good butt whipping to a child that refuses to grow up and take responsibility for his own life? I’m sorry but I know too many people who refuse to grow up, who refuse to live in the real world. I was one of them for 30 plus years. I worshiped a Jesus made in my own lazy ass image. I wanted the gospel to look like welfare. I wanted to be taken care of. I wanted God to supply all my desires not just my needs. I wanted more tv channels, more video games, more music, less work and an endless supply of cash.

It was only pain that brought me to repentance: Sweet glorious pain. I thank God for it because if he hadn’t destroyed my life I would still be that arrogant little SOB that didn’t want to grow up ever.

So in the slightly altered words of John Cougar Mellencamp my new prayer for our times is: Come on Jesus make it hurt so good. Hurt us til we repent ‘cause we won’t repent until the pain becomes unbearable, or un-numbable, or unstoppable by anything we can conjure up. As long as we can create our own magic like the Egyptian magicians did in Moses' time we will not repent.
To paraphrase an old nursery rhyme: A tisket a tasket forget about the basket. Drop your self down on your knees repent or face the casket.

May our God be the God of the whole testament from Genesis to revelation. It is our only hope. If your religion is getting in the way of you embracing the totality of the revelation of God I pray that like REM you would find yourself losing your religion.

Always the optimist,

Brad