The Divine Commodity

Having read through the Bible first as an 18 year old, I came away with the impression that something was deeply wrong with American Christianity as I had experienced it. Over the years, I've found others who have articulated a diagnosis and proposed a better way. Sky Jethani is one of those people. You can read a short and informative interview @ http://edstetzer.com Here is a short video explaining his new book The Divine Commodity:

Skye Jethani on The Divine Commodity from Anne Jackson on Vimeo.

An all out assault

I've had it. Today I'm beginning (although some would say continuing) an all out assault on the American consumeristic, comfortable god. I'm certainly not the first to observe that such a situation exists. Today, however, I'm just fed up with it. I see it everywhere, in the church outside the church. I fight it every day both internally and externally. Many times people in the church are as guilty as those outside the body. We in the body have allowed people to claim that they follow Jesus and continue in their sycronystic ways of appropriating "God" to their culture's value of security and ease.

Just yesterday I heard a story about a guy who claims to be a follower of Jesus who thinks that it's alright to study the Bible for intense amounts of time and call that maturity all the while, never doing anything to tangibly love someone other than not kill someone and be a nice guy. Neil Cole would say that we have educated ourselves beyond our obedience. Paul would say that we are "always learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth." Forget that! I'm done.

Seth Godin said on April 29th "we have enough caution. We don't need an abundance of caution. That's too much." Of course, he was talking about the business world. Nevertheless, the same is exponentially more true of the church. "A great deal more failure is the result of an excess of caution than of bold experimentation with new ideas. The frontiers of the kingdom of God were never advanced by men and women of caution.” -J. Oswald Sanders

When future generations look back on the current time, I wonder what they will see as our culturally accepted idolatry. Instead of words like, nice, pretty, sterile, safe, comfortable and secure, I want to be described as radical, innovative, risk taking, passionate, zealous, skillful and loving because I think those things should characterize people who follow Jesus. I want to go down as one who was waiting eagerly for the kingdom of God, with my hand fixed to the plow, and never looking back! I want to die beautifully exhausted and used up for the King so as to enter into His presence hearing "you've been faithful with a few things..."