Don’t Believe the Hype
One the many frustrations that I have undergone in my life has been the failure to obtain peace. My entire life has seem to be a on-going series of stressful events. It’s typically self induced and I’ve struggled with it forever. However, I’ve learned a lot in my struggle to create a perfect life for my wife and children. One of the foremost principals, I’ve gleamed has been that God is not the blame for things that don’t work according to my plans and just because things aren’t working to plan; doesn’t mean that I am not in sync with the intentions of God.
Is it About You?
We all have dreams and desires; some are very gimcrack in their audacity; whereas others are more benign. Regardless of their intensity, in my twenty-five or so years of church attendance, too often I’ve heard a believer despondently say “I don’t know what else God wants from me” when their desires are not being met. I have a few issues with this. The first is that it is not ALWAYS about YOU! Often the Spirit has something else planned and we look back in time to see that it worked better, than if we had we gotten “our” way. There is also the theory that in order to serve your desires, then someone else may have to suffer. We never know the why, but we have to have trust that God does have your best interest at heart. Christ actually left heaven, came to earth and died for you, exactly what else do you want from Him?
It’s a Fallacy
Too many people believe that they should live perfect lives. They believe that once they answer the calling of the Father; that they are now deserving of some utopian lifestyle. I’ve yet to find a ubiquitous inference in scripture, that when taken in context of the passage; would lead me to believe that we are to have a clear path to a “perfect life.” This is not to say that consequences of our sin aren’t our responsibility. Simple that when you can’t “explain” things, that it may just be how life is. There is an arrogance in thinking that we can earn or deserve God’s favor. It’s as if to say, that if I do things more correctly than that other person, I would than deserve a larger outpouring of blessings.
Case in Point
in Mark, we find an instance of a rich man encountering Christ:
17 Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?”
18 So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. 19 You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Do not defraud,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother.’”[c]
20 And he answered and said to Him, “Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth.”
21 Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.”
22 But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
23 Then Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!”
The Rich Man wasn’t just another sycophant who was trying to impress “The Teacher” (my favorite reference to Christ). The Rich Man was one of notoriety, I think, or they wouldn’t haven included him in the gospel. He came to the Teacher, being of wealth (probably influence), cleaning living and the knowledge of who Christ was; at least in relation to the time and place. By chapter 10 of Mark, when tend to see that the church leaders, of the time, were already not happy about Christ; so this Rich Man was probably of the knowledge that being a follower was not politically correct.
Christ looked at him with “love”, as the scriptures say; and still told him that he needed to give up his wealth and take up a cross. Interesting point here, is that Christ used the phrase “take up your cross” - he was asking the Rich Man to suffer and die in the same way that Christ was going to. Now, Christ didn’t simply say ‘You need to donate your wealth’ He actually said, that you needed to also suffer. Christ did not come from wealth, we can surmise from the large family that he was born into, and being a carpenter; that the family was not influential and perhaps struggled a bit.
Why Aren’t We Perfect
It’s been my experience that the most “on fire” people of God have been those who have been saved from a life of great sin. The conversations are significant changes in their lives. They have a NEED for Christ. They saw their lives with Him and then without Him and they hope to never return to their old lifestyle. People in struggle tend to pray more and rely on God more. They are more eager to understand that troubles of others and are more humble to serve.
Running Away is Cowardly
The world is full of sin and of failed people. Those failings and that sin will effect us all, regardless of how “perfect” we try to be. Christ’s grace is the only redeeming factor; we cannot earn it, as it’s a gift. We cannot demand it, as we were never entitled to it in the first place. However, so many people spend so much time church hopping and driving about hoping to find a church or ministry that will make their lives “perfect” that they fail to realize that time and commitment are necessary to their church family. Commitment to their Church Body is essential to getting some level of peace in their walk. Challenges make us grow; iron sharpening iron. We become unsettled in our families, because they aren’t meeting “our needs” and aren’t acting the way that we perceive them need to be - and we physically or mentally walk away; because we feel that we aren’t being blessed. Many times people who are chasing these “out pouring” of the Spirit haven’t realized that Christ is a personal God. He is not relegated to a geographical location or specific church. By the time we move our camp there, we fail to realize that the revival has moved on after doing His work in that place. Revival tends to not linger for great periods of time. My thoughts on this are vast and too long for this post.
Spirit Filled Demands
As one who grew up in Pentecostal Churchs, I am grateful to be in church network that I am in, as I found many abuses in the churches I grew up in. It was a blaming of the vessel if they weren’t filled. The extreme of these churches would say that if you weren’t regularly in this “gift” i.e. speaking in tongues, slain in the Spirit (which is poor title for this) than the “Spirit” wasn’t upon you. The people who had disingenuous experiences in church, trying to earn the respect of the leadership, or to live up to unrealistic expectations have left hurt. They have suffered from guilt and depression because God hasn’t filled them in way that they were trying to force. Christ interacts with everyone differently and on different levels. There is always something that we need to learn or something area of sin that we need to address and work on. To say ‘God needs me to learn something here” or “my life isn’t right, so He isn’t blessing me” is a limiting statement. Again, it’s as if we can earn a gift. There is always things to learn and area’s to improve, it will always be like that. Christ wants us to respond appriotaly, not crucify outselves.
The Journey
Life is an epic journey. All great journeys have dramatic challenges in them. If they didn’t we’d all just die of boredom. We need challenges to feel alive; Christ fills up and equips us to meet these challenges - not to make them nonexistant. The presence of sin in the world is not going to go away until Christ’s establishes peace. We cannot condemn ourselves for life being filled with challenges, we need to use the strength of the Spirit to meet those challenges. We must strive to overcome them through prayer, study, reliance on the Body of Christ and humility.
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). Every day, since the first time that she held our first child in her arms, I have seen her pour herself into our daughters and exemplify everything I could ever hope to find in a mother for my daughters. 
