Childish and Elementary

I am a child and I don't know many, many things. But one thing I do know as a Christian:If Jesus Christ is Lord

• If Heaven and Hell is real
• If Jesus Christ is coming back
• If the New Testament accurately reflects what happened
• If Jesus rose from the dead

Then our faith must become authentic, real, and spiritually centered. We can't live like the rest of the world, just as it is written, "So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking" (Eph 4:17).

When I call this our puerile and surreal world, I really mean our childish and unrealistic view of the world. When we live as if this life is ALL there is, we life just like non-Christians. I'm not saying that you ignore this world. On the contrary, you and I must be responsible, capable adults, raising our children, doing our jobs, paying our taxes, and showing respect for those in positions of power and authority in government and in the work place. We live on earth as Christians, so we must live on earth.

But there is s spiritual reality that those who are not Christians must resist - especially athiest - but we must hold too if we are to have any integrity in our faith. Living just like those in the world is spiritual childishness because we don't understand the ultimate reality - the super-set of reality that is bigger than life and death. This spiritual reality causes us to love the unlovable better than the morally upright atheist and non-Christians. This reality should cause us to STRIVE to be better employees, students, husbands, and wives. Our motivation comes from the spiritual reality we know and we experience because the Spirit of God lives in us.

This blog then, exposes the childish and immature ways we typically live and still call ourselves Christians. We must not be puerile in our too surreal world, just like everyone else. We must grow up into Christ, just as it is written, we must "make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love" (2 Pete 1:5-7). We must "grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ" (Eph 4:15)

The Integrated Church

I had a discussion last week showing how childish and immature Christians unfortunately really are. The topic dealt with the complexities of having a diverse, integrated Christian church. Martin Luther King said in a Question and Answer session back in 1963, "...We must face the fact that in America, the church is still the most segregated major institution in America. At 11:00 on Sunday morning when we stand and sing and Christ has no east or west, we stand at the most segregated hour in this nation. This is tragic. Nobody of honesty can overlook this. Now, I'm sure that if the church had taken a stronger stand all along, we wouldn't have many of the problems that we have. The first way that the church can repent, the first way that it can move out into the arena of social reform is to remove the yoke of segregation from its own body" (See Western Michigan University Library Archives).

I am pretty convinced that until Jesus comes back, the occurrence of fully integrated churches will be sporadic at best. Most who claim Christ are simply comfortable in their own cultural bubbles. Style of music, being motivated or inspired, and generally looking to have my own needs and desires fulfilled put a major barrier to truly having an integrated church. This seems especially true for White and Black Americans, but it's true for all kinds of ethnically or culturally divided sub-communities in the United States. Sure, occasionally language is the basis for such self segregated communities of faith, but all to often, it is done unconsciously and unwittingly for the purpose of personal comfort, and we are unaware when we self-segregate in this way. Churches will be culturally white with black Americans attending or culturally Black with White Americans attending. But a truly integrated church, where the different cultures are accepted and even celebrated - as long as they don't go against the basic teachings of Jesus Christ - is hard to find.

I would like to encourage anyone who happens to run across my ramblings to consider if they attend church for comfort. Are they avoiding being hurt by the NORMAL complexities of relationships? Have they trained themselves to be motivated by cultural incidents? If so, I want to encourage you to STOP and begin to attend church because you realize you don't belong to this world (John 17:9-18, Phil 3:20, 1 Cor 7:29-31). If you were aware of the CONSTANT philosophies, ideas and principles that are echoed everywhere from advertisements to education, you would be fighting to simply meet with Christians who share a generally common world view - one that clearly understands that we are in the world but not of it. You would not confuse culture and the POLITICS of Earth's kingdoms, nations, and empires with the value system of God.

We have to live here on earth, be responsible, and take care of the things that need to be taken care of. But we don't have to fit in so well that that we have forgotten the cross of Christ. Change what motivates you. Are you drawn simply to great gospel music, or perfect four part harmony, or well delivered sermons, or great children programs? If so, change and let the grace of God which was delivered to us through the cross and blood of Jesus Christ be your motivation. As it is written for our example, "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ". (Phil 3:7-8) Can we at least try to move in this direction?

We all simply need to grow up and stop being puerile regarding our Christianity.