Heart Tracks - The Help

     Years ago I worked for a man who always referred to me and others who worked for him as "my help."  That was how he viewed us.  We were there to "help" him accomplish all his goals and desires in his retail business.  There were times when he showed us some token of his appreciation, but they were irregular at best, and hollow besides.  I often think that we in the church tend to treat the Lord in much the same way my former employer treated me.

     The message in the church of the west so often seems to be "Come to Jesus and see how He will make your life so much better."  Better is the key word here.  It's not that we are a person, a people, desperately sick and completely lost, but a people who, if we just add Jesus to our lives, will find that life does indeed "go better with Jesus."  You disagree?  Think a moment on how often we tell people of His "wonderful plan" for us.  Look at the content of so much of our message.  Jesus will help us have better marriages, more contentment and happiness in our lives.  And a powerful "helper" to enable us to get to where we want to go, and with the least amount of trouble on the way.  I've heard it said that we very much want the Holy Spirit to move in our lives, but "in a direction and time element set by us."  We set the goals and Christ supplies the power.  We become totally pre-occupied with the fruits of knowing Him, not the reality and wonder of intimacy with Him.  He becomes a means of getting what we most want.  The Father is not who we worship, but who we use.  Christ is seeking to awaken us to a hunger for something far more and far more glorious than simply a life that goes well.  Yet we can be very reluctant to actually wake up.
     Our gospel message of today seems to lack a cross.  Oh, we mention it, but its the place where Jesus went, so that "we don't have to."  We so often invite people into a crossless, costless "relationship" with Christ.  An invitation so many of us will gladly, and do gladly accept.  It's a gospel invitation unknown to Jesus.  As Francis Chan said, "Nowhere in the Bible are we told that people are saved simply by praying a prayer and agreeing to receive Jesus."  What we are told is that a true encounter with Him brings about the presence and reality of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and out of our lives begins to flow the fruit and life of the Holy Spirit, of Christ.  If that has not happened, nothing has happened, no matter how many prayers we pray. 
     After Paul's conversion experience on the Damascus road, the Lord sent Ananias to him, telling him that Paul would bear His name before the Gentiles, "For I will show him how much he must suffer for My name's sake."  Living a life that publicly bears His name and willingly suffering for it?  Not a message that gains many adherents today.  Willing to live and experience Him as our satisfaction, even in the absence of the blessings He could provide?  That God is good whether life is going well or not.  Is this really the way of Christ?  It is, but how loudly do we hear it in our gatherings today?  How many of us gauge the strength of our faith based on what He is, or isn't doing in our day to day lives?  This is the gist of the life we live when Christ is the "Help" and not the Holy.  The Assistant instead of the Sovereign Lord.
    I believe that the culture that has produced this message is collapsing all around us.  As it does, this message will not be able to stand either.  It will be, is being replaced by the true message of the cross.  A message that has no interest in taking us where we wish to go, but to where the suffering, overcoming, 

glorified Savior wishes to take us, by way of Calvary.  I want to join Him for every step of that walk, no matter where it leads.  How about you?

Blessings,

Pastor O