The best orthodoxy is unorthodox...

In many ways we have slipped into this rut in the church today and I think it has led to the disillusionment of a lot of the people regarding who Jesus is and what the church is supposed to look like. Too bad really. I guess the good news is that, as Bryan Kimball noted in his book by the same title, that people today like Jesus but they don't like the church. That should not be a surprise really. I mean, setting aside the obvious, that they really don't understand who Jesus really was and is, they are drawn to a person that truly cares, has convictions, and is not bound by the machine. Someone who looks out for the poor and stands against the hypocrisy of the church. Funny because the things that they like about Jesus are in fact true characteristics about Him (there is of course so much more than just that), yet they are largely absent within the church culture found today.

Sad day. In so many ways we within the church have abandoned the cultural necessity of the Gospel and have made the church walls a haven for the apathetic. Rather than reaching out to a lost and dying generation, that needs Christ, with tenderness and care as Jesus did (while maintaining a call to abandon sin as Jesus did as well), we instead all too often condemn the sinner outside the church and, like the Pharisee that prayed in the Synagogue next to the tax collector, thank God that we are not like him. Then, within the safe boundaries of the church we pad godly living, and discipleship. We forget verses that command us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, and instead of calling the people of God to strive for holiness we pad their existence.

It does not have to be this way, yet it has to begin with you, within your heart before the Holy God who canceled the certificate of debt against your life and mine through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Mark Driscoll reminds us that the world is not made up of good guys and bad guys, but bad guys and Jesus. It is all about Christ. Is your life hidden with Christ in God? Then why not you? Why not now?