When we are captivated by the great treasure of Christ and his Kingdom, we’re positioned to winsomely invite others to join us
Perhaps the most insidious error of the church in North America has little to do with liberalism and conservatism, and far more to do with exchanging our spiritual identity with Christ for a cobbled, syncretistic mixture of patriotism, consumerism, and political influence.
In this exchange, we have settled for a muted appearance of godliness that comes with little of Jesus' power.
In our futile desire to simultaneously be a peculiar people while striving to be legitimized by earthly institutions, we may have unintentionally become quite unparticular. Rather than the distinct, counter-cultural Kingdom army, we’ve become common. Our message is confusing to the ears of lost and bewildered sheep, who are dizzy with the constant barrage of voices crying out for allegiance.
Our clarion call to the lost rings hollow amid the secularized themes that sound eerily familiar. We may ourselves have become a contemporary version of Jesus' greatest opponents; our attachments to sacred religiosity and secular power appear to be more reminiscent of the Pharisees than of our Rabbi.
And what have we gotten in this exchange? Our ultimate patriotism is pledged to a temporal and sensual kingdom—one that is both in and of this world.
Our influence on that temporal kingdom is as vapid as it is unspiritual. Our agency within that earthly kingdom is secure only to the degree that our political verve remains useful. And our eternal impact on that kingdom is diminished to an amalgamation of zero and nothing. We have sold our Kingdom allegiance for a currency not too far from thirty pieces of silver. So how do we return to our first love? How do we once again become the courageous kingdom patriots whose devotion is unmistakably loyal ...
from Christianity Today Magazine https://ift.tt/2RAsFvq
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