Heart Tracks - Living On Offense

     Some questions are rolling around in my mind (and not just because there is so much room for them to do that).  Questions like; What, if anything, have I suffered simply because I follow Jesus?  Who, of those around me, ever takes offense with me not only for what I say I believe, but for how I live out those beliefs by the day?  Where, in my life with Him, have I truly taken up His cross and entered into the fellowship of His sufferings?  These questions make me uncomfortable, for I know, if I'll be still before HIm long enough, just where the answers truly fall.

    The word "missional" has come to the forefront of the churches vocabulary.  Many church websites describe themselves as being just that, along with words like relevant and contemporary.  There is a great emphasis on coming outside of our buildings and going to the wells where the lost are to be found.  This is a wonderful emphasis and one we can all support, but I'm disturbed by something I see lurking within all of it.

The idea, if not spoken, at least held to, that we not offend those we reach out to.  We feel that we can win them to Christ by our good works, and our acts of love.  I'm for both, but we need to face a very clear reality; Christ was not hated and killed for the good works He did, but for the message He brought.  They were more than happy to receive all the healings He gave, all the bread and fish He offered, but when He said that no one could come to the Father but through Him, that He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the only way, truth, and life, they rejected Him, got angry with Him, eventually, they killed Him.  He was willing to receive the hate, and the death, because He knew that His life could not be found in His ministry of healing the body, or feeding it with bread and fish.  It was found in Him.  Only in Him.  More, that without Him, there was only a hopeless eternity of darkness and death in store for all who chose what they believed was a better way, a better truth, and a better life.  His very life was a living testimony as to the great lie of such belief, and they hated Him for it, and took His life, not realizing that in doing so, that life was now released in all the fullness of its resurrection power.  I wonder, is our life, our church fellowship, putting forth a life message that brings about, boldly risks, such a response, giving such an offense?
     In Luke 12, Jesus says that He had come to set the world on fire, "to divide people against each other."  Of this "T. Austin-Sparks says, that Christ will inevitably provoke; that there is no room for neutrality.  We are either with Him, or we are not.  Disturbance, antagonism, trouble, opposition.  These will be the real responses to a life lived out in the resurrection power of Christ....unless of course the response is to melt before that Presence and enter into it ourselves.  The question lurks in my heart; does the ministry of my life, the church I'm a part of, bring such fire upon the lives and community among which I'm found?  Does yours?  In my desire to reach out horizontally around me, am I first reaching upward vertically, receiving all the fullness of His risen life so that I am able to go with the bread and water of heaven, of real life?  Even if the response to the going is rejection, reproach, hatred, even death?  Our brethren in places like China, Africa, the Middle East, know the answer to this.  They know what being "missional" is really about.  I wonder....do we?

Blessings,

Pastor O