Straddling The Line

Christians who still have one foot in the world and one foot in their Christianity are straddling the line. If they come to me for advice or with a problem concerning their Christian life and I pick up on this, I will tell them. Many Christians suffer from this practice and it's not uncommon but can be dangerous. So, what is this all about?

A Christian straddling the line hasn't left behind the things of the world which are now cluttering up the individuals Christian life and pursuit of living for Jesus. I've been there; as a newer Christian, I had baggage trying to pull me backward and activities which held me back from being all in for Christ. I am not speaking of the things in our life which we need to continue doing such as our job or career or taking care of our family (providing it doesn't take the place of God). We don't cut ourselves off from the world but we don't allow the world to influence us either.

Jesus has called us to live a holy life; He has called us to live a life which glorifies Him and what He has done and is doing for us. At the heart of Christianity is love. Jesus displayed that love while He was here on earth. He healed the sick and lame, restored eye sight to the blind and drove the demons out of people. Did He do this to get pats on the back or to be a social hit with people? No, He did it out of love for all of us. His love for us is so great that He put Himself on a Roman cross to die for our sin. Can you understand how extremely painful it is to be crucified?

I understand crucifixion hasn't been used as a form of execution recently but the experience is very painful. All the weight of your body is hanging as your arms are outstretched, which makes it difficult to breath. In order to get a good breath, the person needs to push up with his feet but if the legs are broken, as was the case with the two thieves hanging there with Jesus, it is almost impossible and after a period of time, the individual suffocates from lack of breath.

But in Jesus' case, He had been beaten and scourged which ripped His flesh raw on His back. You can imagine the pain He must have experienced when they laid Him on that cross. The roughness of the wood gouging into that torn flesh and then when they lifted Him up, just the movement of His body on that cross would have been excruciating. He probably lost more blood before He was placed on the cross than He did while on it. His death was extremely painful and the one thing a lot of people don't understand is, He didn't have to do it. He did it because of His love for us.

Is that message preached enough today? Is it heard by Christians sitting in the local church on Sunday morning or Wednesday night? Does the hard truth of the gospel have a chance to be slipped in between a social gospel message and a feel good about yourself sermon? I don't have the answer to that question because I don't know. It's a question which points to the apathetic approach to the gospel in many churches in this country. You see, some churches can also straddle the line.

I'm not trying to be critical, I'm trying to point out there's a problem in the way some churches have watered down God's message to us. The Bible isn't even mentioned in some of the churches in this country; it's a sermon on how to be better, how to love ourselves more, how prosper and how to have better sex with your partner. There are far too many professionals in the pulpit instead of God called servants. Revivals are scheduled for certain times of the year but rival doesn't happen because you can't schedule revival. God schedules revival in the hearts of individuals not churches.

Martin Lloyd-Jones had the following to say about the Church following his period of ministry when he did a lot of writing. 

The Christian church today is failing, and failing lamentably. It is not enough even to be orthodox. You must, of course, be orthodox, otherwise you have not got a message. . . . We need authority and we need authentication. . . . Is it not clear that we are living in an age when we need some special authentication — in other words, we need revival.  -Martin Lloyd-Jones, The Sovereign Spirit, 1986

Lloyd Jones had preached for 30 years and had a good grasp on the state of the Church when he wrote this. Again, the same types of problems are still plaguing the Church over 30 years later. Of course, some are more intense and more serious such as the Gay agenda, which has infiltrated the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian USA church. These organizations have ordained gay ministers and the latter approves of same sex marriage. I'm not even going to get into the movement which is slowly gaining approval and entrance into many local churches which openly endorses the sin of homosexuality as being OK with God. God doesn't approve of this sin anymore than He does any other sexually immoral sin such as adultery or fornication.

Satan has been in the Church since the first doors opened. But today, he is boldly proclaiming his rightful presence inside. Forget about whether we should play ball on Sunday afternoons or take part in secular activities which some would consider to be on the edge. Forget about all those things which your grandparents thought were unforgivable (although many of them still are); today, the world is making more advances in the Church than the Church is in the world. How many local churches include secular music, videos and other practices to enhance the service time?

How many local churches sit back and wait on the unsaved to come to them and their church instead of them going to the unsaved? Where is the outreach ministry in some churches? Do those churches even know what that means? Summer missionary trips to Mexico or to Native American reservations are more about getting credits or brownie points for college than for spreading the gospel. Church youth groups go and don't even understand why they are going. Maybe to them it's a trip to get away from home and spend time with friends. Has the Youth Leader even explained what the purpose of the trip is? Is it about digging ditches or repairing buildings or is it about telling people about Jesus?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with making trips like this but it needs to be done for the right reason. Ditches can be dug and buildings can be repaired and the news about Jesus should be at the heart of all of that. It should be done out of love for the people, showing the work is being done for Jesus. This will get people's attention. They might be wondering, "Why would these strangers come and do this for me?" They have to be given the answer, Jesus.

The world makes the Church and Christians look like a bunch of fools. Hollywood loves to mock God, Christians and the Church. It will always show an extreme view of Christianity and the viewers suck it up. In television programs, Jesus is mocked and Christians are depicted as narrow minded bigots. In a TV drama, it will always be the crazy Christian who is the bad guy or the parents who allowed their child to die or any other extreme belief they can slap on the Church in one hour.

Abortion is running wild in this country and has reached new lows on the morality scale. How does the Church feel about this? Many Bible believing, gospel preaching churches have spoken out against it but a lot of the liberal churches have sided with those who believe it is the right of a woman to commit this act. To understand there is a heartbeat and life inside the womb and still commit this act is barbaric. It is the taking of a life, regardless of it's stage of life, it is murder. To kill a child at birth is murder and this thinking and action is demented.

I could go on with other issues but I need to point out that the solution for all of this is a serious commitment to serving God. It's about spending more time with Him than with the world. It's about pastors preaching what God's word says and not about saying what itching ears want to hear. It's about taking Jesus to the world and not waiting for the world to come to us because the world wants nothing to do with church. We have to tell them about Jesus; inviting someone to church won't get it done.

Jesus has opened up so many avenues to Him, so many ways to hear about Him and yet, we fail to take advantage of those. It's not the pastors responsibility to tell our unsaved friends about Jesus, that's our responsibility. And, that is where the problem lies; we don't want to tell people about Jesus. It is so easy and so simple to do that. We are afraid people will yell at us, call us names or just tell us, "Get lost, I don't want to hear that." So, if they tell you that, fine let them go because you can't force them to listen.

Finally, the solution to all of these issues and problems is the Church needs to be more active in its outreach to the world. The Church needs to be more concerned with reaching the lost of the world instead of entertaining Christians. Real ministry is outside of the walls of the church building. The secular work place is a great place to reach the lost. Pray for those you work with who are not saved and ask Jesus to open a door for a conversation and an opportunity to tell a co-worker about Him.

We need to be able to reach friends who are not saved, neighbors who are not saved and family members who are not saved. We need to look for those opportunities to reach the lost souls who God might just be sending our way and we need to be ready. The Church is not just a group of believers who gather one or two times a week, we are those who are serving Christ and we are to be His instruments and tools to reach the lost in this weary world.

I speak in terms of this country in which we live when I speak about these things concerning the Church. It's time for the Church in this country to wake up and get to work. It's been too long of a nap and we gain nothing from sleeping when we should be working. There are far too many Christians who are still straddling the line between Christianity and the world.