Reasonable Service

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice–the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. ~The Apostle Paul

A wise man, someone whom I deeply admire His heart for Jesus, once told me that: “There are times when the people need a Prophet and other times when they need a Priest …” He may or may not remember the time in which this was said but it took roots and is especially remembered as this entry is written.

I have no stones to throw, neither have I arrived at this place of total surrender in which i am so oft compelled to write and speak of.. Nevertheless, I must continue, ‘being confident of this, that he who began a good work within will carry it on to completion.’

Yesterday our nation experienced a horrific tragedy — our hearts are broken. And yet, while we all sit in this broken state of longing.. longing to wake-up and discover this is only a very bad dream, an unreal nightmare perhaps, longing to understand the incomprehensible — questioning: “Dear God, WHY.!?” I am gently being reminded that what many of us (those who are Not directly involved in this tragic happening – indeed a parent’s worst very real life nightmare) are really experiencing, in general as ones who call ourselves Christians and as those who ‘are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God’, what we are really experiencing is a state of shocked denial.

Denial of the truth, that by our collective and permissive will we have advanced the things of this world making them into idols unto ourselves and our children.  Denial of our neglect. Denial of our rebellion. Denial of our idolatry.  We have refused the offering of ourselves as a holy and living sacrifice — we have neglected to protect the gateways to our mind and heart, our eyes and ears as well as those of our children.  We have copied the customs of this world, deeply implanted them within our homes and within our communities – failing to worship in spirit and truth; failing even our ‘reasonable service.’

Mercy of God shine on those in darkness.

Many of us have taken this neglect to the extreme of rebellion. Resenting and rejecting any who dare to speak of this truth; labeling and writing them off as mere over bearing “do gooders” or as angry zealots. Voices of truth and reason are entirely tuned out while we tune in to the latest movie, sage, or song – inquiring minds need to be informed we foolishly assure ourselves.

We not only sit, watch, and listen to productions that demoralize, damage and destroy the holy institution of family; we actually pay for this deadly pollution to filter through the eye and ear gates of our homes and thus our personal being, plus that of our entrusted posterity.   We continue to thumb our noses in the face of God every day in our choosing what music we will listen to, what TV programs we will view and what movies we will go see at the theater; spending untold amounts of time weekly on activities that have not one desirable benefit for own selves, let alone that of any others. Meanwhile people, whom Jesus poured out His blood for, are perishing, literally dying, while we go about with blinders on, spiritually numbed and indignantly ignorant to the schemes of the evil one.

This, no doubt, sounds harsh.. But it is nonetheless a word spoken in love. It is not all negative. All is not lost. Jesus is still on The Throne. There is Good News, also! We have been given the Gift of Repentance aka the Gift of Turning, and the freedom plus the power to exercise it through His Holy Spirit.

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah. I acknowledged my sin to You, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and You forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah. Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to You at a time when You may be found…’ (Psalm 32:1-6).

We can repent; that is to turn.. turn away from all that is not of the LORD.. We can turn.. turn off our Cable, Satellite, TV and all other type services we call entertainment that support, promote, idealize, glamorize, and air apostasy, violence, sex, loose virtue, poor morals and the demonic. We could turn in and refuse to purchase those weapons that enable individuals to commit mass murders…

We can take the money we save from this [Gift of] turning and use it to support orphans and widows. We and use it to feed those who are literally dying from starvation and lack of clean drinking water in third world countries. We can use it to help buy immunization shots that prevent death in poor countries for children who desperately need.  We could help support the eradication of Human Trafficking and Slavery.  We can turn and if we truly desire Life, we will turn.

Furthermore, we could use our new found time which we would find ourselves having without these empty activities, to volunteer with low income and at risk children in our local communities. We could serve a meal to the homeless. We could offer our time to a single parent or sit with one of the many lonely elderly people among us – visit the shut-ins.  We could befriend that oddly different person or seemingly awkward, strange family we have been avoiding. We could help to stop stigmatizing those who struggle with life altering disabilities by becoming genuinely concerned and involved in the life of a special needs or mentally ill individual. We could go lay hands on the sick and intercede for their healing.  We could cook a meal for that family who just lost their Beloved to death.  And the list goes on of what we could do to show God’s love to others… We would be saving lives; our own and those of our children. Please, pause calmly, think on that, then act upon it.

Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world. ~James, brother of Christ  <– In other words: Go! Touch the Untouchable. Jesus certainly did and so must we.

Our God is not dead nor absent from this tragic world. HE is alive within ME, within YOU, within US. He is there enabling His body, the Church to use their freedom for the service of others by going about doing good, in His name, daily. This, after all His ‘tender mercies,’ is nothing more than our ‘reasonable service.’