Desperados

I first wrote this a number of years ago, and I'm just sensing a need to send it to you today. I think it is even more timely now. We are living in desperate days, and those who are His must be a desperate people. Desperate for Him, His Life, His Truth, His Holiness. We are to be, as this writing says, Kingdom Desperados. Men and women desperate for the fullness of His Kingdom. May we, you and I, His Church, be such desperados in these days.

Desperado. Besides being a song by the Eagles, what meaning can the word have for us? The dictionary defines desperado as a "bold, violent criminal, a person of desperation." That's not a definition that many Christians would want to be identified with. We prefer "law abiding, peaceful, good neighbors, good people." I don't negate those terms but I do think the church is suffering from the fact that we seem to have an overabundance of "tame Christians." Does this mean I promote lawlessness in the lives of believers? Certainly not in the earthly sense, but for sure in a Kingdom one.

When I first got "saved" all those years ago, and contemporary Christian music was a genre where folks wrote songs out of love for Him and not a desire to have a profitable hit, I remember a small station in Colorado Springs playing a song that contained lyrics that said, "A Christian and an outlaw are rebels to the world." In a sense, a Christian must be an outlaw as concerns the value system and worldview that saturates the culture they're a part of. We are to live in total submission to Him, and in total rebellion against the god of this world and his system. We're desperados, people desperate for Him, His Kingdom, His life, His heart and His ways. At least, that's what we're called to be.

Matthew 11:12 is a scripture we tend to just read over and not give a lot of thought to. Mostly because we don't really understand it, and don't seem to really want to. They're Jesus' words. He said, "And from the day of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force." We pray "thy Kingdom come" on a regular basis, yet our attitude for the most part seems to be a very passive one. We wait for His Kingdom to come like we wait for a bus or the metro. Passively, disinterestedly, in mostly boredom. If it comes, great, if not, well, we'll just keep waiting. We've got plenty of reading material and other things to keep us occupied. That attitude will never lay hold of the Kingdom or be laid hold of by it. Christ calls us to seek His Kingdom with a vigor and passion that looks like violence to all who are observing. There is a desperate hunger and desire for it, for its fullness, that it would not only be part of our life, but that it would, He and His Kingdom would, be our life. We storm the Kingdom of heaven and in return are consumed by the Kingdom itself. As we take it, it truly takes us. That I believe, is what marks a Kingdom Desperado. I want to be one. How about you? Active, passionate, and yes, violent, in and for the cause of Christ. We've waited for the "bus" long enough. Let's fold up our "papers" our study groups, classes, and meetings, where much is talked about but little is laid hold of, an attitude that seems to have been the law of the church for much too long, and be "outlaws," seeking His Kingdom....with desperation. Kingdom desperados.

It's been nearly a decade since I wrote the above, but I think it's message is timeless. Mark Batterson said that if we are truly to follow Christ, He will take us out into the shadowlands, where light and darkness clash. This is where the church now finds itself, in a clash of kingdoms. Passive dwellers of His Kingdom will not survive there. Only those who seek His Kingdom with a desperation born of the days in which we live. We live with desperation, but not a hopeless desperation. It's desperation determined to lay hold of Him. Such desperation will never be disappointed.

Blessings,

Pastor O