Thursday, December 27, 2012

The Game Is Afoot In Both Worlds

Enough with this 2012 stuff already! I am more than willing to cross the last few days off of the calendar and get on with the pains and miseries awaiting us in 2013. I want my fiscal cliff!
Not really. But I have had enough of 2012, and am looking forward to being done with it.
I admit that from time to time I might wax a bit theological here at FDW-it can't all be car crashes and political jawing.
Christians know all about living in a transitional time, being done with the present and looking for a better future. My hope goes way beyond 2013 into Eternity, after Christ returns and sets this world aright.
But for now, we all live transitionally, aliens in this alienated world.
Bye the bye-Christians are not all united in HOW to live in this world. You've got true believers who live in Christian enclaves, who fear the world's influence on their 'walk'. They do all that they can to keep the world at arms length, to keep from being sullied by the world.
And then there is me.
I don't believe that Christians are to fear the world's influence. If anything, the world fears our influence; we carry the Gospel to a world that doesn't want to hear it. To an unbeliever, a Christian praying in public is just as dangerous as a Muslim suicide bomber.
"I don't care what they do in that Church-it's offensive if they try to tell ME that I'm going to hell!"
I've mentioned it here before, someone else's analogy:
"Christians are the salt of the earth. But if they keep in their stained glass salt shakers (churches) they do no good for the world."
Jesus ate with sinners. He didn't spend all of His time in the Temple, only interacting with the Priests and Pharisees. He went downtown. He went uptown. He went to Galilee and Gadara, places filled with (whisper it) non-Jews, unbelievers.
I'm not trying to justify my non-religious life(without)style. I'm simply not afraid of the world's influence on me. I trust that when I get it wrong (which is often), God corrects me and I move forward. I know that He doesn't smile any brighter on those Christians who try to please Him by keeping unstained by the world.
While we are here, that is an impossibility. In Heaven, it won't even be an issue.

1 comment:

Doug said...

I really would love to see 2013 get here in a hurry.It's often said that the longest five minutes in existence happen right before closing time. Not bar closing-what made you think of that?
I mean the minutes DRAG right before you get to leave where you are for where you want to be.
High hopes for 2013? Same as always-the return of Christ to rule the world from Jerusalem.
I think He has chosen to rule in that place as an example of Governance done right, far better than anything that Man has come up with.
And then into eternity, where things get better than better.
I am dusting off the dusty crackers left over from the Puritan Christmas and will munch tham staring at a wall in the dark for Puritan New Years Eve.
One of my favorite parting lines:"Don't do anything I wouldn't do! Oh wait...then you wouldn't have anything to do."