Something To Think About Fitting in, or sticking out to God's Glory, 7/10

Eric Metaxas makes a great point about ministers/ministries and relevance in today's Breakpoint.  The gist of his commentary is no matter how hard we--conservative Christians--try to fit in, we won't.  The leaders of the world scene around us will just keep moving the goalposts, and demanding more.  I encourage you to listen to or read the piece. Metaxas is in a long and honorable line in making this observation.   The Apostle Paul wasn't a very accommodating fellow when it came to compromise with the world.  He counselled making "no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts."  (Romans 13:14) As we'll see in a moment the lusts within us are the receptors to the temptations in the world. In Ephesians 2:1-3 he indicates that the world lies in the realm of Satan's control.  Read and you'll see how those lusts fit in here. No argument from John. Or James. Jesus plainly stated that we ought not to expect to be treated than He.  The world hated and persecuted Him, and if we follow Him it will us (John 15:20). One will search in vain in Martin Luther's powerful hymn, "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,"  for any hint of accommodation.  The great reformer is said to have declared, “If I profess, with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition, every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ." The Church that Luther founded, floundered when it tried to compromise with the zeitgeist of the early 20th Century. And even of late, those who have tried to accommodate the clamor for the recognition of same sex marriage by their silence, have found they didn't get very far.  Just ask Lou Giglio.  (I'm not accusing him of compromise) how that worked out. A while back Os Guinness observed in, Prophetic Untimeliness, that all our efforts at relevance have done is to render us irrelevant. As a preacher I admire wryly recommended, "Why don't you preach the Bible.  No one does that anymore."  (I heard the line from Allistair Begg.) It's STTA:   To find out more about CBC at our website, or in a recent newsletter. God's Story in His Own Words. a message composed of nothing but Scripture that presents the flow of Divine Revelation from "In the beginning," to the final "Amen." You can find the most relevant message of all time here.

The Sweet spot between adapting and settling:

SOMETHING  TO THINK ABOUT "What made you decide that you would make an ashtray in ceramics class?" "Really, I never did decide.  I just looked at the thing, and it looked more like an ashtray than anything else, so. . . ." To one degree or another, virtually every hobby project has an element of that kind of imposed parameter about it  It's hard to make a long project with short lumber.  Sometimes the color it gets painted is determined by what was left from the last remodel. Setting out to make a bench six feet long, but ending up with one five feet, nine inches, because you had this lovely piece of oak just short of six feet is likely a good use of resources.  Ending up with one six inches tall--not so much.  Adapting is a virtue.  Settling for that which clearly isn't what it should be, or won't do what it ought to do, is unsettling, to say the least.  Striking the appropriate balance requires, among other things, holding to some unalterable core values, and having a clear view of reality. Over the years, building my greatest project--my life--I have messed up in both directions. On occasions I have gotten hung up on minutiae. Important thingswent undone, essentials were ignored, but I paid close attention to some stupid detail that a year later--maybe ten minutes later--didn't matter at all. At other times I have let my impatience, or desire to please others, or failure to plan, or (fill in the blank) talk me out of some absolutely essential element.  I settled when I should have insisted and persisted. If you get the idea that I struggle some between those two extremes, I'd say you've got it about right.  I've still got some more ideas on the matter, but how about we finish up by doing something I ought to do a whole a lot more, praying. Lord, I need to know the difference between what is essential, and that which doesn't matter.  I know that understanding Your word is essential, so help me to learn it better and obey it more thoroughly.  Lord, don't let my life turn out to be something it never should have become.  Amen We aren't done yet.  Stay tuned. It's STTA.