"Let the world feel the weight of who you are, let them deal with it"

“Tj, you go overboard with Jesus”.

I want to write humbly… seriously out of love and compassion laying aside myself and letting the love and light of Christ to shine through. How can we, when we know the horrifying experience Jesus endured for us not go overboard with Him? I know I don’t hold the popular opinion and that I am aggressive or in your face and I say hell and sin, but it is not for fun… It’s not because I want to be offensive just for kicks.
I remember when my grandfather would talk to me about God and Jesus and how much He loved me and I remember how I loathed him for it. I went to church… spoke occasionally… played the part of Christian and was completely and altogether lost. I would despise those who talked about the bible as a thing to live by and when they spoke of holiness, I checked out… but then it happened. I was completely ruptured from my sin; I realized that I was a poser, a fake that knew about God with my head but was so far form Him with my heart. I guess that’s why I am overboard now. I sit here with tears swelling in my eyes when I think of who I was and how much I did against God. I was a lying, cheating, hateful, dirty God-hater and He picked me up, wrapped me in His arms and washed me white as snow. He forgave me for things I thought unforgivable. How could I not in the midst of all this grace be completely overboard about Him? How could I not offer my life as a vessel for Him to mold and change and break if need be? He died, I mean really bled out His blood… what is overboard? I don’t know, but I do know he deserves it… every bit of awkward silences and hateful words from people who don’t even really know us. Every bit of ridicule from your family and laughter from the world is small in comparison to His beautiful gift. Tell Steven he was overboard when he stood being stoned to death because he loved Jesus. Tell Peter while he walked on the sea towards Him then later asked to be crucified upside down because he didn’t feel worthy to be crucified the same way as Jesus. Tell Martin Luther that as he nailed his view of God to the door of the church. Tell me that I’m overboard when I’m urgent and persistent about my God who saved me and my reply will remain… Yes, yes I am and I hope I never change, ever. I hope that every chance I get to open my mouth I exhaust that opportunity for the cause of Christ, that the passion of the cross and echo of the empty tomb never ever escape my conversation.

Now you feel the weight of who I am… now you have to deal with it.

wrestle between remedy and revolution, it's painfully beautiful

“How lonely sits the city, that was full of people”, is a line from the book of lamentations that stir’s in me so many emotions about the church in America as a whole. When I say church I am not referring to the bride of Christ totally, but am incorporating the building in which we corporately gather to worship. Churches in America were once a place of honesty and integrity. They were a hospital to the broken and weary, a place for lives to be mended and for the lost to be found. Sadly, now they scarcely survive amongst a barrage of TV preachers who have turned our faith into a joke with their five-dollar prayer penny and vials of holy water. There is also the constant assault of modern philosophy and new age religion that insist that there is no absolute truth. All the while the church has laid down the fight claiming to turn the other cheek… truthfully they are filled with terrified, spineless men and women who will not take a stand or with those who believe in part that we have to change our view of God and sin as the culture changes, as if to say God has become soft in these last days and some sin has become ok, both of which are a fallacy. The sad reality for the daring believer looking for encouragement to be holy, to actually be full of integrity and live the gospel is that the pulpits of America are largely littered with men who have traded the sometimes hard to swallow truth of God for a pacifying lie. They have coaxed the bride of Christ into believing that being saved means you have money and no worries, or that it’s a ticket to instant happiness and pain free persecution, that it is a license to sin. In short, they have lowered their standard of preaching to meet the world’s standard of living. The result is dieing churches and powerless preachers.
The repercussion for such a gutless act by so-called men of God is a generation who feels no need for God or the church. There is no standard of holiness or righteous living to be respected so they see no difference, no need for a Savior. My heart breaks at the idea that we have one side of faith saying we were made to sin so just do it and God will forgive you, while the other holds a list of rules in which an angry, mean God will enforce without any patience or mercy… both have partial tainted truth, but neither contain the honest beauty of our God. Where have we lost it? I look every Sunday and see a church that is consumed with everything but pleasing the Father, rather they are fully concerned with pleasing themselves. The horrifying thing about the position the bride of Christ has taken is that she has as a whole disconnected herself from her first love. If for a moment we are concerned with numbers, our agenda, or basically anything other than obedience and exaltation of our gracious sin-atoning God then we have traded a beautiful romance between Lord and lover for a systematic process in which self-righteousness is our fruit and dry religion our reward.
My mind and heart wrestle somewhere between remedy and revolution. I mean. I know Jesus gave Himself so that we could be free, so that there could be true reconciliation, but to watch the church wallow in un-renounced self centered sin while claiming devotion to God makes me sick with indignation. Lit be understood that I don’t for a second think myself to be perfect or to have “arrived”. I simply believe that God is calling out to His bride in desperation. Can you imagine His pain? He looks down on His creation and sees them satisfying themselves on and with everything other than Him. It is a constant arrow into the heart of God and we are the archers. “You are not enough God… not today” we say that with our relentless pursuit of more things, the perfect relationship, the perfect job or even so called “godly living”. Some actually choose to carry out a list of rules rather than be romanced by their Creator. This form of church and religion has left our generation passionless and unwilling to give their lives for Christ, unwilling to be loved by God.
I yearn for those of you who were once princes and princesses in the kingdom, but now live like slaves… I would that you revolt, it’s ok to not be ok with church when it takes away from the fame and passion and beauty and glory of our God. I know if you have read this far then you too are wrestling somewhere between remedy and revolution… I believe they are the same… that it is impossible to have one and not the other. So go, those of you who really are princes and princesses, joint heirs, sons and daughters of a living God and reclaim what is yours and mine, reclaim the relationship the “church” has dumb down to a list of rules, reclaim your first love and know there will be casualties, that it will cost, but oh what a worthy price if even our lives are lost.