Saturday, September 13, 2008

Walking through a Minefield

"Lead me, O Lord, in Thy righteousness because of mine enemies." - Psalms 5:8

The hate of the world against the people of Christ seems to grow more severe each year that the Lord tarries; and as this occurs, pastors tolerant more worldliness in the church. Participating on a church committee, board, or ministry becomes more like a stroll through a minefield. Your health, sanity, and well-being are a gamble and your success is less likely with each step you take. The result is people jumping from ministry to ministry, increasing of prejudice and racial division in the church, and the weakening of the church, as sin abounds.

Carnal Christians stand out in most every church, proudly displaying their carnality, wearing tee shirts to acclaim this week’s worldliness – politics, secularism, humorous cliché. To accomplish their worldly agenda, the carnal Christian will magnify the most trivial offence in the mature follower of Jesus and attack them at will to further their worldly agenda. Rather than regret this, let us use it as a challenge to walk in greater obedience to our God. Since so many are watching for us to stumble, give up, or quit, let this become our motive to carefully walking before God.

If we, the more matured in the faith, behave carelessly because of the more carnal among us, the world will soon see it, and our enemies will use our careless act to exaggerate and emblazon their zeal of slander. They will shout with excitement. “See how the man of God acts, see what he did! He’s a hypocrite!" It is the more mature believer who tries to right the wrong, for the lesser believer does not care for the Kingdom as much as his or her personal agenda. The carnal believer is willing to damage the cause of Christ, and insult His name in order to obtain his or her personal agenda.

The cross of Christ is in itself an offence to the world. The cross is a “stumbling block” to the Jew. It is “foolishness” to the Greek. When you and I are attacked and embarrassed, let us not add offence. As I have grown older and hopefully wiser and more spiritually mature, my prayer has become, “Lord, please do not let me be an embarrassment to you.”

Our adversaries will misrepresent our best deeds and point the finger at our motives in order to attempt to derail our actions and deter our goals. In our technological advanced world of cameras and recorders, we must always be on guard. Enemies disguise themselves as friends. The espionage is everywhere. Our relationship must be real and we must be the real thing. “Lead me, O Lord, in Thy righteousness because of my enemies.”

“Lord, lead me according to They righteousness, and in keeping with your objectives for my life on earth. Lead me this day, lest my enemies trip me up. Lead me this day, that I not embarrass you. Amen”