Who Wants to be a Millionare Part 2

I'm finally back. If you have not read last week's entry you need to do so before picking up at this point.

The stand in the car dealership parking lot proved to be the reason I was at the audition. As stated in the last blog post, I spent the day conversing with a successful CEO who is not impressed with current evangelical Christian thought about leaving the earth behind to be microwaved in a nuclear fit of human stupidity. Imagine my pleasure at hearing his view from the "outside".

What a delight it was for me to share with this intelligent man, that as an evangelical pastor, I agreed with his basic frustration. His eyes almost rolled back in his head when I told him that from my pastoral perspective, the "Left Behind" mentality is draining modern Christianity of it's power, potential and perspective. I took note that as we talked, several bystanders were cueing in, shaking their heads in agreement. One sweet elderly lady, a school teacher whose husband is slowly dying from a lifetime of smoking, thanked me for what she heard.

Think about it for a moment....these are people that some evangelicals are secretly taking delight in the notion that they will be left behind at any moment to face God's nuclear fury. So, you say, we should quickly evangelise them so that they won't be "left behind". And I say, what a pathetic, anemic, sad and shallow motivation for longing to lead people to the God I love. I take one of my basic stands in my spiritual life on Zechariah 8:23 which says, "In those days ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man saying, 'Take me with you, for we have heard that God is with you'".

Romans 2:28, 29 says, "For he is not a Jew is one outwardly, nor is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God." So as I take my heart to God, in faith in the finished work of Christ and He circumsizes my heart, I am a member of spiritual Israel. Ephesians 2:19-22 shouts this truth! My goals are out of not some kind of fear motivated, shame based, judgement longing exercise! I am motivated by the calling to have God so near, so real, so tangible in my life that ten people grab me and beg for the reality of the God I live with and richly enjoy.

So, return with me to the audition waiting line. This CEO is convinced he can "pigeon hole" me as a "Left Behind" narrow minded bigot. But what he finds is a pastor whose theology is rooted in historic, orthodox Christian history and not in the pop-theology of million copy sales receipts. I told him that the Garden of Eden is rooted in the full intentions of God for the planet and the human race. I told him that my daughter and son-in-law are so impassioned by this integrity of Biblical truth, that they have named their first child, Eden. And what was his response? "I did not know that such a church or a faith existed in Christianity."

What is my conclusion? That for all of our "seeker sensitivity" programing and all of our efforts to make the church "relevant", we are missing whole and gigantic chunks of our society by avoiding the truths that Jesus came teaching and announcing.....the Kingdom of God is at hand! As a result, lives are changing from disease, doubt, fear and loothing into leaping, sighted, hearing hope-filled joy!!!!

Who wants to be a millionare? Me, so that I can finance the aforementioned announcement of the Kingdom of God reality available to anyone with a spiritual hand eager to grasp it.