This is my bone of contention with an older generation, but before I get into it let me give some background. My positive working career began at a small grocery store in 2001 then I took two Church positions for about six years and now I am back in the grocery biz for a little while as Jennifer and I go to school. When your working in retail or in a place where you provide others with customer service there is a way that you deal with people in a polite manner. So this is how it works for me. When I encounter a male I say to him ” how are you today sir”, and when its a female I say ” how are you today ma’am?” Now, 95% of the time this goes over without any hiccups, but there are always some that have something to say about how I address them. Here lies my contention. My generation is often labeled as a disrespectful generation or a people group who have little respect for an older generation and are lacking the same level of politeness that they possess. Often when I address some males, with the greeting ” How are you today sir”, I get this response in return, “don’t call me sir I work for a living.” This phrase drives me mad, mad, mad. The reason it drives me mad is because I get stuck in a catch twenty two. My catch twenty two is this, if I say” Whats up bro, or how you doing dude”, we continue the cycle of disrespect in their eyes. But if you call them sir they get angry about that too. Please for the love of raising up a respectful generation, allow young people to call you sir and ma’am, of course fitting for your specific gender. Thus we break the sick disrespectful cycle.
Today in the western world and in much of the Body of Christ there is a crisis that has happened and is still happening. We have seen the devastation of legalism on the human heart through the fruit of a hell fire and brimstone message. This type of message although it was truth, came across as a human effort trying to help people stay pure. Rebellion to the message of legalistic holiness was countered with what I’m calling a cheap grace message. Cheap grace is a subtle but destructive message that perverts the true grace of God empowering us to live in sin and compromise as though God doesn’t mind. The Church in this hour is not in need of a message that gets us off the hook. What it does need is a clear understanding of what I am going to call happy holiness. In this Mini-Series I am going to be covering the idea of you and I living before God and Man on the Straight and Narrow.
In the Book of Matthew chapters five through seven Jesus lays out line by line Christianity 101. He walks us through the idea of a New Covenant lifestyle, dealing not as much with the outward but the inward. He talks about what a Christian’s heart should look like and what his new outward actions and reactions to this present age should be. Our outward reaction is now called to come from an inward condition. Matthew chapter seven and verse’s thirteen and fourteen say this;
“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it”.
Here Jesus lays out the basic premise that the way you and I enter into eternity is through a narrow gate as opposed to a large wide one. Today more than ever before we see our culture inviting us to enter into a so called eternity though a wide door that includes many eastern and humanistic ideas of empty and vain religions. The word “many” that Jesus uses in this passage is a word that is translated majority. Jesus is telling us that the majority of humanity even folks who call themselves Christians will travel the busy, wide, easy road to a eminent destruction. As beleivers in Christ who are looking for a city who’s builder and maker is God we have need of this wise counsel. In the Gospel of Luke chapter thirteen and verse twenty-four Jesus uses the word strive when He says this, “strive to enter the narrow gate”. That word strive is a word that is translated fight, or contend. These are not words of ease and passivity asking us to enjoy our liberties in Christ but words that should provoke great thought and concern in the hearts of hunger beleivers. So many today in the Church are calling this narrow gate that Jesus Himself calls humanity into a path of legalism and a cumbersome load that we shouldn’t have to bare. The goal of this life in my opinion is not trying to see how close we can get to the fire of sin and compromise and still love God. Many would call that idea, you and I enjoying our liberty in Christ. If that’s what were going to call liberty in Christ I don’t want anything to do with it. That liberty leaves me dull, disconnected and board in my relationship with this Beautiful Man.
In my upcoming posts I am going to talk more about the straight and narrow, cheap grace, a permissible Gospel and how we live in this present hour. Those are in no specific order. Until next time…..
This is a list of some prayers that I pray as I sit before The Holy Spirit and The Word. I hope they help you in your journey of reading The Bible.
Holy Spirit I thank You that You live in me. Its for my good that You have come, and I ask today that You help me comprehend that which You want me to hear from Your Word today.
I take The Word Of God and set it before me like a giant block of ice, and I ask that You, Person Of The Holy Spirit, that You would blow upon this block of Ice and refresh me this morning. Breath on me through the written Word.
I ask that You create an umbilical cord from the Word of God into my heart today, so that as I read You would supernaturaly fill my heart with understanding concerning the Scriptures. Connect Your Word into my life today.
I thank You that Psalms 119:11 says ” thy Word O Lord have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against You.” I ask today that You would place Your Word in my heart in such a way that I would not sin against You. Fill my heart with Your Word that when I preach its just Your Word that comes forth. When I pray its just Your Word that comes out. Your Word in me, changing me from the inside out. Let Your Word come from the inside out.
I thank You that James 1:5 says ” you would liberally give me wisdom if I asked in faith”, so today I ask in faith that You would fill me with wisdom beyond my years and my education. Fill me with the wisdom of God for the situations in life.
Today I lay hands on my mind and I quote Romans 12:2 saying ” be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind”. I ask today that you would renew my mind as I place it before Your Word. Break into my mind today with your Word so that it produces change again from the inside out, that I may prove Your will to the earth around me.
I hope that some of these are helpful to you as we endevor to become students of The Word.
In the last part of this mini-series I am going to cover how I actually read my Bible. After setting my Bible on my lap in the morning, I take a few minutes and talk with The Holy Spirit who lives in me as a means to slow down my mind, and position my heart in such a way that I can receive from the Word. I then ask the Holy Spirit several things that I am hoping for as I read. At this point with my pen in hand I am ready to begin my daily journey reading the Scriptures. For this last part I have a scripture for doing what I do when it comes to the reading of the Word. Revelations chapter one and verse three says;
“Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the Words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it, for the time is near”.
Now before you saying anything I know that this passage is speaking directly about the Book of Revelations but I have taken it and applied it to the entire Word of God. What I mean when I say that I have applied it to the entire Word of God is that I read the Bible 99.999 % of the time out loud. I find that when I read in my head or silently I have a hard time staying on track and my mind can often wander to the point that I quickly forget what I just read. So not only does it help me to stay focused while I read but I am using more then just my mind to interact with the Word. It allows the Word to go also through my ears so that I understand in my mind what I’m reading but I also hear it through my ears.
I have read the Bible this way for approximately 7 1/2 years and it has helped me to not be just a hearer of the Word but a doer. This method has enabled me to absorb more of what is being said allowing it another point of access into my life. As weak humans attempting to love an invisible God we need as much of the Word getting into us as we can get. So, reading out loud doesn’t only take place in the privacy of my house but everywhere I read my Bible. That means airports, airplanes, restaurants, Jiffy Lubes, Church, the bus, Jen’s Beauty College and anywhere else that my journey takes me. This style of reading has impacted in me in a way that I see no changes in the future. I want my heart to receive from the Word anyway it can. And whatever it takes I want to make the attempt to make it happen.
So this concludes my mini-series on The Spirit And The Word. I will be posting one more that will have several prayers I pray before and during my reading of The Bible. Thanks so much for reading and I hope the thoughts and prayers impact you and draw your heart into a greater relationship with The Scriptures.
