"Knowing the correct password – saying 'Master, Master,' for instance – isn't going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience – doing what my Father wills. I can see it now – at the Final Judgment thousands strutting up to me and saying, 'Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, our God-sponsored projects had everyone talking.' And do you know what I am going to say? 'You missed the boat. All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You don't impress me one bit. You're out of here.'" (Matthew 7:21-23 MSG)
The liberalism-circus bandwagon long ago ran over much of the Christian church in America and the West. What it left in its path was splintered congregations coalesced around causes, with each doing what is right in their own eyes.
In Los Angeles, churches are uniting into networks where members will provide houses to shelter from deportation those who have come to America illegally. There is little doubt that heartbreaking stories abound about families being broken up by deportations and immigrant families living in fear of being apprehended and deported.
It's always easier when someone else dies in your place for your cause, though. The simple fact is, Obama left nearly 1 million criminal illegal aliens among American citizens. Many citizens – who do have a right to be in this country – have been irreparably harmed or even killed by this invading army that believes the law just doesn't apply to them, and sneaking across the border is equivalent to legal immigration with all the benefits of citizenship. It is not.
Oddly enough, Christianity itself is based on the very premise of the innocent dying to spare the guilty. That happened once and for all time when Jesus died on the Cross some 2,000 years ago. In God's economy, it was necessary that the guiltless and sinless One die in the place of the guilty and sinful many. It was also necessary that Jesus rise from the dead – which He did.
"Spring Break," as churches across America now refer to that world-changing event we used to call Easter, was the dividing point of the Bible and of human history. Old Testament. New Testament. God up there in heaven. God down here within us on earth.
Is that what we see today in the church? The "ism" bandwagon that ran through the Christian church and maimed so many believers was Old Testament legalism. Preachers of the law have ascended the pulpit over the wreckage left in many churches. Thus there is no end to the schemes of man designed to curry God's favor and have Him join us in our work.
We need to do as Jesus did just before the Cross: "But he turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men'" (Matthew 16:23 NIV).
So it is that a nation filled with Christian "churches" bids God to join it in reforming the world, by blessing the church's isms, be they moral insubordination, sexual deviancy, drugs that dim God's voice inside of us, or holding together families by sheltering people with no right to be here. Even at the cost of the lives of those with every right to be here.
There is today an immense move of God building around the Christian church in America and in much of the world. It is very telling that the move is "around," and not "in" so many American churches. We need to stop calling our own work God's work. Churches are so involved in themselves they have forgotten God.
When people see the Christian church doing God's work, they will be impressed. More importantly, so will God.
"Why should it be judged a thing incredible in your sight if God raises the dead?"
Behind Enemy Lines: Supernatural Meddling.
Media wishing to interview Craige McMillan, please contact [email protected].
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