stalking god.

a response to: sexy “christianity”

A few weeks ago the corpse of sexy “christianity” was exhumed from its digital grave. What was little more than a dormant diary-entry reawakened and some of my most profuse heart-leakage started seeping into the cracks of facebook. And while its meanderings seem to have struck a nerve, I have a dirty secret to admit:
 

I am book-reading-and-blogging boy.

I wrote sexy “christianity” plaid-clad with a side of skinny jeans and coffee in a local java shop. My tactless and messy pen strokes were an attempt at confessing my own martyr-complex, pharisaic tendencies, and shallow faith with resolve to move back to the epicenter of a simple overflowing love for my Murdered Savior.

It takes one to know one in a culture where one of the most ostentatious and perhaps trendy things a Christian can do is write a blog about spirituality. Often we share our messiness with the world hoping to feel a little less messy. But really, we end up smearing our mess into a mess that’s more nice-looking but no less messy. The blogosphere is an inch deep and a mile wide.

But then, life’s not about a blog… or a style… The depth of your deep-V is not a measuring unit for the depth of your spirituality. Torn up shoes can’t prove how far you’ve walked with Jesus. And a longer beard doesn’t particularly make you more Christ-like (sorry, white-Russian-bearded-baby-faced Jesus!).

You can look like you know God… you can know all about God… but that has no bearing on whether or not you actually know Him. 

When you know all about someone but don’t actually know them, that just makes you a stalker.

GOD DOESN'T NEED STALKERS, HE WANTS FOLLOWERS... 

Temptation lurks in the murky and shallow waters of trending Christianity. It would demand every Christian forget Christ but continue looking as if they knew Him. This is what the temptation of early trending Christian culture demanded of Ananias and Sapphira. When selling land for the Jesus’ sake became the trend, the couple sought to be trendy. They sold their land with hearts bent on looking the part and hoping to receive Peter’s praise. That heart condition cost them absolutely everything.
 

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven… I will declare to them, ‘Depart from me, I never knew you...’” (Matthew 7:21-23)

Whether you truly know God is between you and Him, but my resolve is to peel back the spiritual-looking behavior (regardless of whether it’s dressed in suits, sackcloth, or skinny jeans) and take a look behind the curtain, into the mechanism of my faith. My intention is not to take any one flavor of Christianity to the woodshed… My intention is to make war. To raid whitewashed tombs by releasing clarion calls to the Church – that each one of us would check our own hearts with a sense of ruthlessness towards any corrupted motives we may find there. Join me, I dare you to.

For Ananias and his wife there was this pervasive thing called “self” that weaseled its slimy little way into something beautiful and made it sickening to the heart of God. God will be the judge of acts that are truly righteous and acts that just look righteous. Man looks at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7)… That said, the Consuming Fire that is our God has an incredibly direct way of burning through the dross of our showy spirituality and dragging our true intentions kicking and screaming to the surface.
 

“If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” (1 Cor. 13:3)

“Quit your worship charades. I can’t stand your trivial religious games:
 Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings - meetings, meetings, meetings - I can’t stand one more! Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them! You’ve worn me out! I’m sick of your religion, religion, religion, while you go right on sinning. When you put on your next prayer performance, I’ll be looking the other way. No matter how long or loud or often you pray, I’ll not be listening...” (Isaiah 1:13-15 MSG)

 

...HE DOESN’T WANT A SHOW. HE WANTS OUR HEARTS. 

Want to be a radical Christian? Don’t look to trending Christian culture as a manual. You can’t pin radical Christianity like your favorite recipe or DIY. Look to Jesus Christ – the Author and Perfecter of your faith (Heb. 12:2).

Only the revelation of the glory of the Risen King Jesus will do if being consumed with passion is the end we seek. Only un-tinted, soul-altering, paradigm-shifting, idol-breaking, slit-side and nail-pierced-hands-feeling experience with Jesus will do. And to the one who has truly placed his hands in Christ’s side, and to the one who has truly put his fingers in the holes of Christ’s hands belongs a revelation that will not fail Him… yet it will destroy him, stripping him of all he owns. For that one, the one to whom Christ has revealed Himself, the only response that person will manage to muster is “here am I, send me!” For the one who has met Jesus face-to-face, worldly pleasures will be forsaken at the drop of a hat for the pleasure of Christ’s presence.

You can have works and not know God… But when you DO know Him – what a seriously blessed thought – works will inevitably, naturally, organically, flood out of you. A friend of mine recently put it this way: “When it comes to following Christ, good things are good only in so much as they are oriented by what is best, that is, a love for God.”

Hearts that are consumed by an encounter with the Risen Jesus Christ are hearts that will inevitably find their mission irreversibly intertwined with that of God’s. What breaks Him will break you. He breaks for bare feet and dirty water. He breaks for Africa and Skid Row. He breaks for impoverished coffee farmers and sweatshop laborers.

So in the midst of our social-justice-driven generation let the church bells resound with the thud of the question: “where’s your heart?” Wear your TOMS, drink your coffee fair-trade, and blog on your MacBook pro… but wear, drink, and blog because you’ve had an undeniable encounter with the grace of King Jesus. Not because you want people to think you did. Or because you want to think you did.

Take all that you are and offer it to all that He is. Steadily, faithfully, lavishly. With dogged resolve in valleys and green pastures. The life of radical abandon is one that has walked so steadily so long with Jesus that on a dime it would do anything Jesus asks. To ask the veteran Jesus follower to sell, give, or lose all is to ask little, for He has the supreme treasure of Christ. If he loses anything he has lost nothing.

God doesn’t want cookie-cutter lovers with no heart and soul. He wants you. Every piece of you - every flaw. So run to him. Take your cultural relevance with you, because you’ll need it… God will you use in any condition. All you have to do is run. – Jayson Schmidt

Shadow Sons, Desert Daughters

Here's an excerpt from a recent guest post to another blog:

The most furious longing, the most ravenous jealousy, the most tenacious pursuit is that of God’s longing, jealousy, and pursuit for lost sheep. Put your hand to God’s chest, soon you will discover how His heart beats. In thunderous palpitations His heart screams so loud it breaks: boom boom “Seek and save the lost… seek and save the lost…” Come close enough to the fire of God’s heart and all at once He may consume you with the same ravenous desire. Soon the blood transfusion you had with Jesus takes its toll on your desires and priorities – His sense of urgency overwhelms you, His mission consumes you, His passion melts you. And then, in booming rejoinder the palpitations of your heart begin to march to the same beat: “Seek and save the lost… Seek and save the lost.”

I’ve seen it happen to the most unsuspecting hearts. It happened to me.

My heart began to break. I got a little too close to God and His longing for the lost hit my heart like a branding iron. Red-hot jealousy on once-calloused-now-raw flesh. The call of The Great Commission became as urgent as the clarion calls of air-raid sirens at midnight. Time to wake up.

Sometimes it twists in my stomach, my spirit lurches and heaves over the task. So much to do, so little time. How is it that after 2,000 years of active evangelism over 2.5 billion still haven't heard the Name Jesus? These are the hard-to-reach peoples of the world. Children of the 10/40 window. Daughters of the desert. Sons of the shadow. Living under an iron curtain of spiritual darkness and estranged in a far-off country with none to rescue.

I suppose it's time I circle back to the question: "What will I do with Jesus?" Suffocate Him under the weight of cultural normality? Muzzle Him so that I won't offend anyone? Perhaps I will listen to Him when it suits me. Or perhaps I will just leave Him be. I don't pet Lions and I don't gallivant into foreign wars. It's much safer if I leave Jesus at the dinner table - that way He'll bless my food... a spiritual butler with no commanding force upon my life. God forbid He ask me to serve Him. 

The truth is that any response other than "Here am I, send me" is unworthy of Him. I heard it once said that this is the language fit for the King: "Yes Your Majesty, King Jesus." That's it. Nothing less will do. To do anything with Jesus other than bow to His Lordship and advance His Kingdom is to make His cross no cross at all... a valueless relic, a powerless symbol of some nice idea.  

What will you do with Jesus?  

We can exaggerate many things, but we can never exaggerate our obligation to Jesus.
- A.W. Tozer

short-term christianity

Lord, please don't let this be a two-week thing...

Mid-summer Christianity is an odd bird.

Sometimes its stunning to think of.

Sometimes you wanna rip your hair out.

The world is flooded for a few months with a swell of Gospel-carriers. Youth groups in slums you never knew existed. College students, absolutely nuts about Christ, backpacking through Europe and nomadic steppes. Right now there are Christians sharing the Gospel for the first time with someone who is receiving it with joy! Yes, so many haven't heard the name of Christ... and YES, we really blow it in short-term missions... often... but for a few months the American Church hikes up her long jean skirt, gives up Her time and resources, and takes a jab at it. Somewhere between Jesus saying "Go" and Revelation's multi-ethnic worship service, people are going. Albeit clumsily as we go, the Bride walks into the harvest fields and, with shaking knees, obeys.
Yes... I said "jean skirt"... 

Mid-summer Christianity is more than over-seas missions work... ya know? On the outside it looks like Bible camps, men's retreats, church camp-outs, women's conferences, and CREATION FEST. But on the inside it's about taking some serious steps deeper into the heart of God, cozying up to Him, and staying there. It's about experiencing God first-hand and not just learning more about Him.

There are some who will go seeking God in summer events and return broken, beat-up, and alone... sometimes because of sin but often because The Holy Spirit is doing a distinct work on the heart - bidding one to a spiritual intimacy deeper than a tingling of the senses can attain. But most, however seem to experience some new and profound dimension of God's heart that grips and captivates them. We blow off the dust from our Bibles, stick our noses deep in the recesses of forgotten scriptures, and remember how to pray. 

And then...
We come back from our Mid-Summer experience with God, get on our knees and through tears and clenched teeth we scream something like:

Oh God, PLEASE don't let this just be a summer thing!

All the while there's this lump in the back of our throat tossing with fear, "I'm terrified that in a couple weeks my life will not have changed one bit." We pray that prayer hoping in the off-chance that if we scream it loud enough and mean it hard enough God might keep the ball rolling.

I want to press hard on that lump in our throats until we remember that we have unlimited, unconditional, unrestrained, inexplicable access into the presence of God Almighty through Jesus Christ. Any time, any day, any where. 
 
A steady, rhythmic, even-paced, daily walk with God in devotion trumps summer "highs" every time. For the one who walks steadily with their God, the mentality shifts to: All the time, every day, everywhere.

You're not in India anymore... SO? The Lord of The Nations goes with you - walk with Him and the flame in your heart for the lost will grow. You don't have a charismatic preacher letting loose on you for 3 sessions a day... SO WHAT? The God who spoke stars into the sky and breathed your first breath deep into your lungs has something to say to you and will speak if you'll listen!

Your mid-summer event was short term, your faith doesn't need to be.


So push back the lump in your throats my friends. 

Today is a good day to be in the presence of God.
Tomorrow is a good day to burn brighter for the King of Kings. 

Cling to Him. Tightly. 
Cozy up to Him, and never leave.