Feed your faith carefully, because only fools consume fruit …
They haven’t first inspected.
Author: Plumbline Faith
Simple Truths from a Lifetime of Service to the King of Kings
Real love doesn’t just affirm what is good and right, but also opposes what enslaves and destroys.
Those ministering authentic grace to folks who are lost and know it …
Understand this.
Those peddling an abstract faith that’s never put into practice …
Don’t.
Those with the Biblical commitment and personal humility needed to actually function together as part of a simple, participatory church in their home or other hospitable local gathering place …
Do.
Those who don’t and can’t make it work in their own lives and home towns, however …
Seem most inclined, regrettably, to write books and blogs – and travel around – telling everyone else how to.
Unfortunately, great has been the wreckage they’ve caused.
Such “organic church” writers and “itinerants” peddle what they themselves don’t do, under a plethora of misleading titles and slogans like:
“Beyond Evangelical,” “Deeper Life” and now “Insurgence” (Frank Viola); “Subversive” and “Red Letter Christians” (Keith Giles); House2House and Apostolic “Workers” (Milt Rodriguez, Jon Zens and Felicity Dale); “Viral Jesus” (Ross Rohde); and “Houses That Change The World” (Wolfgang Simson).
When it comes to them and their mutual promotion networks, be discerning …
Because you can’t get to authentic from phony.
Nor can you get there with their general distain for God’s plenary authority of Scripture as His written Word …
Or their competing, trans-Biblical existential ideologies.
Please hear me:
For the health of God’s people, it’s time for those of us who are actually making simple, participatory churches work in our own lives and home towns – through a firm commitment to the apostolic foundation already laid in Scripture as God’s authoritative written Word – to begin looking towards each other for mutual encouragement.
If we refuse to be discerning and instead continue to look to – and promote – those who peddle other agendas, pretenses and ideologies …
Then their persistent pattern of failed lives and failed churches will continue to be a hindrance to our own churches and what God wants to do among us.
Their bad fruit and inability to make their own books work in their own lives and home towns – or consistently and sustainably anywhere else – should be a clear warning which we all heed …
No matter how deceptively charming and misleadingly enticing they otherwise may seem.
Healthy churches and healthy lives deserve no less.
So-called progressive “Christians” dismiss Christ’s plenary authority of Scripture, seeking instead a Jesus of their own creation …
Who reflects their own sensibilities and insecurities.
Fundamentally, they worship themselves …
Rather than the authentic Christ of Scripture.
The world claims human dignity comes from self determination.
This destroys individual worth, because dignity – when anyone can make it mean anything – means nothing.
In contrast, Scripture says human dignity comes from God …
Who created us in His likeness and image.
This preserves individual worth, because dignity – when it comes from a fixed standard apart from us – is inalienable.
Scripture is God’s word because He inspired it …
Not because it inspires you.
Seriously, it’s good to be inspired …
But Scriptural authority doesn’t depend on you.
“Christian” isolationists commit a special kind of stupid …
When they cloak their cynicism and civic retreat in moral superiority.
Don’t be deceived.
Evil advances when we ignore Christ’s commands to go, serve, and obey in all spheres of life …
Including culture, politics and government.
Let’s not fall prey to contemporary Gnostic ideologies, which reduce Christ’s authority to “spiritual” things only.
Rather, let’s learn to be effective witnesses of His Lordship in all spheres of life …
Including proper, Biblical guardrails on how to do so appropriately.
When we let past hurts and regrets define us …
They destroy our future.
If we fully expose and release them to Jesus, however …
Our future can exceed our past.
But it’s always our choice.
Christians who are more focused on some Great Escape than the Great Commission …
Got messed up priorities.
Those who reject the absolute justice of God’s wrath …
Never seem to grasp the absolute mercy of His grace.
Real faith affirms both.
Existentialism – “Christian” or otherwise – is just another form of narcissism …
Because it makes each individual’s own perceptions and sensibilities the center of all truth, reality and morality.
Because all truth is God’s truth …
What God reveals – whether in Scripture or through creation – is infallible and inerrant.
Our own interpretations – whether theological or scientific – are not.
Wisdom comes from distinguishing between what God has actually revealed …
Verses what we presume about it or project back onto it.
We seem to have many Christians …
But not many truth tellers.
When I stop viewing my own God-given gifts, callings and motivations as being more essential than yours …
We can finally begin expressing – together – the multifaceted fullness of Christ.
I never wore skinny jeans or cool glasses …
Or had an elevated stage with a smoke machine, a hip band, brass-tinged collection plates and comfy pews for the feel-good masses.
I didn’t peddle trans-Biblical messages like “deeper life,” “easy believism,” or “seeker friendly” …
Nor did I seek – as is common these days – notoriety through books, blogs and conferences about “how to” on things I never made work first in my own life and hometown.
Instead, my life has been about simply going – without pretense or fanfare – wherever Jesus sends me.
Often it was to the fringes of polite society in my own county to help break bonds of darkness through the raw, unmitigated gospel of repentance and Christ’s Kingdom rule.
So I went to places others feared to go …
Where those who are lost and know it live broken lives.
And like Jesus commands in Luke 10, I never brought a budget, a branded “ministry,” a title, an agenda or a program.
Instead, I learned to embrace, respect and honor – in their own communities – those I encountered …
Because “love,” I have found, is such an overused word these days.
So I’d go – simply, just as I am – carrying an unadorned message of grace, forgiveness, repentance and redemption …
But in the authority of Christ’s name and the power of His Word.
It was enough:
Lives were changed …
Disciples made …
And simple, indigenous churches emerged – without building campaigns, ministry teams, sound equipment or marketing plans – in living rooms and coffee shops and other places where relationships naturally happen.
I’m not claiming total success each and every time I’d go.
Trust me, I made many mistakes. But by doing it, I learned …
And despite my shortcomings God nonetheless brought forth amazing fruit and built His church more often than not.
As His Kingdom took root and local leaders emerged, I’d then stay in touch as an ongoing resource but otherwise recede back to my own local fellowship …
So others could come forth and express Christ in their own wonderfully unique ways that reached their own communities.
It cost almost nothing:
I gave of my own labor and resources …
Rather than live off of, or peddle for donations, those God sent me to reach.
But this I learned:
Although Christ expresses Himself in different ways in different cultures and contexts, and He calls us each to different things …
His Kingdom is never about building our own kingdom.
Forgive us, Lord, for what we’ve done with your mercy and grace …
Because it’s not about us.
Over the years, my wife and I have ministered to literally thousands of individuals trapped in life-controlling bondage.
Addiction, sexual perversion, gender confusion, abuse, violence, despair, chronic homelessness …
We’ve been there helping others, up close and personal.
In the jail, in the woods, in the ‘hood and in other places where polite society seldom goes …
And seen God redeem many lives.
We have yet, however, to meet anyone who’s there simply because of poverty or racism.
Although those are real issues, they are more often symptoms than root causes.
For the vast majority, the key issues go back to dysfunctional upbringings due to dysfunctional or absent fathers …
Often affecting multiple generations.
Although the power of the Cross can heal individual wounds …
Without restored fatherhood, there’s not much else a nation as a whole can do to actually prevent most social ills.
Spiritual narcissism in pursuit of significance …
Inevitably leads to dead ends.
Godly unity isn’t about tolerating those who deny Biblical authority …
But calling them to repent of it.
Good stewards of God’s blessings don’t give a dime for the paradigm of “church” as we’ve come to know it …
But give instead as the New Testament actually shows it.
If the righteous remain silent …
Nations which elevate public sin over private virtue will not long endure.
When we are faithful with God’s means …
He is faithful with the ends.
When nations forget God:
Liberties orginally adopted to protect virtue become twisted entitlements for sin …
Until liberty itself is lost.
Don’t confuse God’s grace with His joy.
Although God’s grace is unmerited, His joy comes through simple obedience.
Where God rules …
There are no “selfie” churches.
God doesn’t want me to fix the fix He fixed to fix you …
Any more than He wants you to fix the fix He fixed to fix me.
Never works …
Never has, never will.
Show grace, but let Him do His perfect work in each other.
Plumbline Faith 