Word for the Church: Heart Roots and False Gospels

When I was a teenager, I had a musical library I'd slowly collected, featuring both cassette tapes and CDs, since I was hitting my musical stride right around the same time as CDs were really becoming a thing. So there were several "repeats" in my collection, because I didn't just want the cassette tape; I also wanted the CD. DC Talk was probably the most often-repeated one -- that was one of my favorite groups, and I was sad when, a few years later, the group disbanded and went their separate ways. 

Over the weekend, one ex-member of the group announced that he had been "deconstructing his faith" for years, and now considers himself an "ex-vangelical." 

In follow-up reading about this, I was struck by his honesty about his confusion, although he doesn't say it in so many words -- except that he has more questions than answers, something I've heard other people of faith say recently.

This morning, the Lord spoke to me about spiritual discernment. 

A couple of years ago, I had seen a little news clip about the members of DC Talk with a "Where are they now?" approach, and as it gave a very brief overview, I realized, I hadn't kept up with them at all. I had no idea what they'd been doing. In the short video, I found that Toby Mac was now a solo artist (apparently my kids love his songs; I haven't listened to him much these days), Michael Tate had been lead singer of the Newsboys (another favorite band of mine while Peter Furler was still the lead singer), and Kevin Max had done various projects, and I believe, had joined Audio Adrenaline at one point.

In this short video as I watched, I remember being really struck by this thought: Kevin seems lost. There was nothing there that would have pointed me in that direction, and I hadn't followed the band members for years, so I had no idea what they were each doing or what their struggles or successes were, but that thought was clear as a bell... and it came back to me this morning when I read about Kevin's weekend announcement. And... busy person that I was, I'm ashamed that I shrugged off that gentle nudge... and left it. As I say, that was a few years ago.

So here's my thought: What if, y'all? What if I had realized the Holy Spirit was nudging me to intercede for a struggling person with "more questions than answers"?

This isn't the only time I've realized, too late, that I've missed something the Holy Spirit has shown me and written it off as "weird thought," or "eh, whatever; I've got things to do." And I'm ashamed of it. Y'all, I want intercession, front-line battle to be my first priority. The fact that I've got laundry to fold or an exam to study for -- in light of eternity -- comes second. Or forty-third. Those things are not as important as what happens when the Holy Spirit says: Tamara, pray for this one.

In the wider picture, the Lord has shown me that I need to be in prayer for our church. Not just the church I attend... but the church that is the flock of Jesus the Good Shepherd. See, the most successful war campaigns in history have been the ones that attack from the inside-out (see the Trojan Horse, for a stellar example of this), and the enemy -- in his attacks against the church -- has made headway, especially here in the U.S. where we are not -- as a widespread thing -- persecuted, as some members of the church are in other countries, where we do not have laws against worship or congregating for prayer, etc. 

Rather, the attacks come in the form of subtle division. Inter-family mask debates. Vaccine debates. LGBTQIA debates. Social justice debates. BLM debates.

This is hard, because Jesus cares, so deeply, for every person in every part of every debate. The point is, though, many of us have focused on the debates... rather than on the enemy who is using them to cause division. And we've tended to forget that we have a Book that tells us the enemy's warfare strategy. 

1 Corinthians 1:10-17 lays out Paul's concern in glaring letters: "My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you (whaaaat? Quarreling among the followers of Christ? Here's the point:) What I mean is this: One of you says, 'I follow Paul'; another, 'I follow Apollos'; another, 'I follow Cephas (Peter)'; still another, 'I follow Christ.'

"Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanus; beyond that, I don't remember if I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel -- not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power."

And this is where I think we've come to today -- we're right back where the Corinthian church was in Paul's time: I follow BLM Christianity. Well, you're wrong, because the Christianity you should be following is Vaccine Christianity. Well, both of y'all are wrong, because you should both keep a mask pasted across your mouth and nose; that's Christianity.

Of course, I haven't heard anyone say those specific words, but that's the spirit of what's happening.

Y'all, strip it down! Get rid of the "human wisdom," which is emptying the cross of Christ of its power!

Lord, bring us back to that cross. 1 Corinthians 2:2, 4-5: "For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified... My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power."

And that's where we've gotten confused: We've rested our faith on the wisdom of men. 

This morning as I prayed for the church, the Holy Spirit showed me a picture of a cross-section of earth. There were a lot of bushes above the earth, but below the ground's surface, a tangle of roots twisted through the dirt so thickly, you could hardly tell what was dirt and what was root. And in the mass of twisted roots were hearts. Not the pretty shapes you make at Valentine's Day, but the ones with aortas and ventricles and chambers, and I kind of pulled back -- it was gross, because the roots pierced the hearts and entwined around the hearts and threaded through the hearts, and there was just... no removing the hearts from the roots. Many hearts were beating, though some of them had gone completely still.

And then I noticed soap bubbles foaming around the hearts. A man appeared -- who I believe was Jesus, though he had a white t-shirt on and a wide-brimmed gardener's hat -- and He bent over the hearts and gently wiped them with the foam, and the slickness from the soap freed the hearts from the roots. But the hearts quivered with pain, because the soap stung the open puncture wounds. But the man continued relentlessly.

Malachi 3:2 came to mind as I watched: "Who can stand when He appears? For He will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap."

We can't be afraid of refinement. In fact, we should long for it, because the refinement burns away the false gospels. And I'll admit, I've been praying for the church to shake, shake hard. I've prayed that the Lord would shake us so much that we can only fall on our faces before Him, so that when we look for help, we look only to Him -- not to Paul or Apollos or to Cephas, not to vaccines or masks or social justice... we look only to the cross of Christ and to the empty tomb next to it.

Hebrews 12:26-29: "At that time His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised, 'Once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens.' The words 'once more' indicate the removing of what can be shaken -- that is, created things --so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our 'God is a consuming fire.'"

Holy Spirit, shake what should be shaken among Your people, so that what is unshakeable is all that remains. Amen.