Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Standing Watch on the Bow


I usually pause this time of the year to take a tongue-in-cheek look in the rearview mirror. Between Hollywood, politics, Neocon follies and the like, there’s enough hay to keep a hack like me in a steady stream of copy. I’m not in the mood as 2006 closes and 2007 unfolds. I’ve been thinking about other things.

One church worships at the altar of political correctness while another becomes a troop of “me-monkeys” bent on naming and claiming heaven dry. This church tortures, twists, trashes or ignores scripture in order to celebrate aberrant behavior, while another continually invents and reinvents esoteric experiences that have neither basis nor precedent in Scripture. Sadly too, a growing number of evangelical churches who claim to be vanguards of Biblical truth have created what’s little more than an “Idiot’s Guide to Christianity”. I’m really troubled by this…

I’m tired of a dumbed-down, “Jesus for Dummies” version of Christianity…
I’m brokenhearted at seeing expressions of the historic faith hijacked by socio-sexual agendas…
My chops are frosted at seeing the Holy Spirit mocked and blasphemed by charlatans fleecing the ignorant through some manufactured manifestation…

Mostly, I’m disappointed with my own apathetic and complacent spirit.

It’s 2007 and there is a great challenge in front of us all. This year is an Undiscovered Country and my prayer for the next 12 months goes something like this:

Let us pray…
Almighty God,
Thank you for the passing of one more year.
Though you’ve not promised us tomorrow, you have given us this moment.
In this moment:
I pray that you make my life a living epistle for the entire world to read.
Let Your grace, mercy and peace be left for the lost in every step I take.

May your word no longer remain simply hidden in my heart, but rather let it pour from my lips like a spring of living water.
I want to know Christ, knowing the power of his resurrection, apprehending His sufferings and in like manner, dying to self.
Forgetting what is behind, Lord propel me forward toward the prize, the higher calling that’s found in Christ alone.
Let my back be strong, my hide tough and my heart tender.
I ask this in and through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Simply...well put, Amen
Thanks

Anonymous said...

Amen, Andy!

Blessings,
Suzanne

Anna said...

Is it just to forget what is behind?