Why

Why am I starting a new blog about a subject that has been discussed for 2000 years?  Because true Christianity is hard to find these days.  And I want to encourage myself, and all believers in stepping up to the call that Christ gave to all believers.  A call that will demand of us to be truly different from the world.  


I look around me both when I am in church, and when I am out "in the world", and I can not see the differences between the believers and non-believers.  The american church today has been hijacked by feel good philosophy that destroys rather than restores.  I am hoping to find others like myself who want to escape this worthless form of religious existence and enter into a true and meaningful Christianity that will actually lead to souls saved.


But do not believe I am currently leading by example.  I only desire too.  I am entering into a journey, and I am asking if anyone wants to come along.  


What I am going to be doing, both today in my next post, and with each successive post, is to look at the scriptures and analyze both how we are (or if we are) currently responding to the  passage, and what we might do differently.  


It is my belief that the American Church (and possibly the church elsewhere, I can only speak from an American perspective) has become complacent.  Not wanting to call sin sin.  Not wanting to offend.  Trying to get by on grace and God's love, while ignoring his direction and justice.  But I also believe that God is a God of redemption, and He will enable us to turn around, to become the Christians He's called us to be.  And through that to truly bring the lost to Him, that He might save us all.


Allow me to express my point the way Jesus would, through a parable:  Imagine a sea full of people.  There is only one boat in the the whole sea, but it is huge, and capable of holding all the people in the entire sea.  Everyone in the sea has a life vest, but all the life vests have a limited time that they are good before they give out and the people drown.  On the boat is a few people with life preservers on strong ropes.  They have been recruited by the ship's owner to save all the people in the sea.  At first all the recruits do there job diligently.  But there is a problem.  The ship's owner has an enemy, and that enemy is on the boat and is temporarily in charge of all the ships equipment, furnishings and supplies.  While the recruits were hard at work, the enemy was setting a trap.  He started by merely setting out comfortable chairs for the tired recruits.  Then he started talking them into longer and longer breaks.  During those breaks he started turning those chairs away from the sea.  So the the recruits attention was no longer on the suffering, but on themselves.  Then he convinced them that the sound of the dieing was merely an irritation, and invited them inside the boat to see a show in the ships  grand theater.  When they arrived at the theater they became very comfortable and found themselves watching and entertaining show that never ended.  And they forgot about the dieing.  Every once in a while a dedicated recruit would come in and remind them what they were recruited for.  A few would head the call and repent of their laziness and return to the work.  The rest would get together and make the theater grander, telling themselves that by making the theater even nicer than it already was, that the dieing would be more eager to join them.  But when the work was done, they would just return to their comfortable ways and wait for the dieing to find their own way into the theater.  Over time those that were being rescued did start to come into the theater.  But the recruits already in the theater were made uncomfortable by the appearance and behavior of the newly rescued, and so they came up with a bunch of silly rules they expected the newly rescued to adhere to if they wanted to stay in the comfort of the theater.  At first the newly rescued would try to conform, but they found they were constantly being looked down upon and judged, despite there efforts.  Until finally the newly rescued started to feel that death was better than the life they were being asked to live, which looked nothing like the life promised them by their rescuers.  So they began to leave and jump back into the sea, to await there death with those who were also dieing, but who accepted them as they were.  Finally those recruits who were still tossing out life preservers were finding that no one was even trying to catch them, for no one wanted to be saved.  So the recruits who were still interested in the plight of the dieing decided they needed to go out in the ships life boats to save the dieing.  But even then they saw that the dieing were not only in danger of drowning, but many were licking the wounds they received from the recruits in the theater.  They then realized that the only way to rescue the dieing was to first jump into the water with them and patch the wounds the other recruits had created, and then the dieing could be pulled to the lifeboats.


I feel I am one who has been sent out as a scout in the first life boat to see if the dieing will enter into it.  And I have found the wounds.  I am now coming back to ship, to ask those still throwing out life preservers to join me in the life boats, and to prepare to get wet, and to figure out how to patch up the wounds.  


The ship's owner gave up his only son just to have the ship to save the dieing.   I am one who has helped build the grand theater, and I am now one who has repented.  Now I am ready to get wet.  I just need to figure out how to bandage the wounded.


Come with me.  I need all the help I can get.  Let's figure out how to swim, and how to bandage the wounds together.