Showing posts with label Love Letters. Show all posts

Growing up we played a game that at a variety of times went by different names. The two most common of the names for this game were: play-like, and pretend. We made ourselves out to be the real thing and pretended all the things we knew about the situation of that person, or those people.

One of my favorites was to play cowboys and Indians. Some of us would put on our paper cowboy hats and grab our trusty bent stick that allowed for a good grip when pointing at the bad guys. With a “bang” and a “pop” we would have a real live pretend shoot ‘em up in our back yard. Others would take a long stick, tie a string on it, and aiming another stick, pull on the string until “twang” the arrow flew so that we could rid the land of the dreaded cowboys who had invaded our land. We loved to tie a band around our head and insert a feather into it to show how brave we were. It mattered not that it was a crow feather, we were real live pretend Indians . . . straight out of the wild west.

These days I’ve noticed that there are a lot of people still playing pretend. They put up the front of knowing Christ, doing and saying all the right things. We are so good at the game of play-like that we pretend our way to church, convincing ourselves that we are doing God a favor simply by calling ourselves by His name. We have become so adept at playing pretend that we have developed entire churches and church societies that bear only the slightest resemblance to the real thing. We make ourselves out to be the real thing and pretend all the things we know about the kingdom that is church.

We are not really serious about being church or even being Christlike. Instead we settle for being pretend believers in a pretend church pretending our way right into the broad way that leads to destruction and Hell. Sadly, because we are so busy pretending to be real that we never become real and those around us never know reality but only pretend.

It is time to stop pretending and become real.

Indulgence often gets us in trouble. Usually it is because the things we indulge in are those things which are not good for us. In the middle ages, the Church began to offer “Indulgences” which allowed someone to be released from purgatory. Indulgences were given for special deeds or special offerings given to the Church. One industrious priest came up with a fund-raising idea to help build up the Church’s coffers—sell indulgences. He even began the practice of selling indulgences to people for their loved ones who had already died. If you offered an indulgence in the name of a loved one, they would spend less time in Purgatory and make it into heaven sooner. It is reported that he roamed the streets of Germany proclaiming, "When a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from Purgatory springs!"

Today we indulge ourselves in many things, and often they are things which we should be denying ourselves. Let’s get off of the indulgence bandwagon and submit ourselves to Kingdom work.

Most of us like our cakes and cookies to be done—not well done, mind you, but done. We leave them in the oven until they have completed their time. If we take them out early, they may be underdone—half-baked. As we look at the love letter to the church in Pergamos we are (as the church today) encouraged not to be soft in the middle, underdone, half-baked. We are instead given the directive to be fully committed to Christ. Let’s be fully done—ready to live life for Christ in God’s Kingdom. Let’s do Kingdom work together.

When I was growing up we pronounced it “MILK toast.” It was a funny-sounding expression that referred to someone who could stand up to nothing. Whenever things got a little tough, they wilted, melting into a sea of nothingness. If there was one description you did not want to apply to you it was milque-toast.

Sadly, any number of church members and, yes, even churches fall into this bucket. Do we crumble when we encounter resistance? Are we known for our soggy response to difficulty?

I’d like to be known as a stand-up guy rather than a melt-down one, wouldn’t you?

The chorus of an old favorite song of mine goes like this:

Take a stand for the Light in the middle of the night,
Take a stand
We’ve been waiting much too long.
Take a stand for what’s true in everything you do
Take a stand.

The message from the song is clear—stand up for what’s right so that what people see is that which is right . . . and do it all the time. Sometimes there will be persecution. Sometimes there will be pain. Sometimes people will pressure you to live in the darkness when you know you should live right—stand up, stand strong, stand right!

In today’s world we find all kinds of things to be busy about. ‘Nothing wrong with that. There may be a problem with the things about which we find ourselves busy, though. We can turn ourselves, our homes, our churches, into perpetual motion machines. You know, those objects that, once you start them, never stop. What we need is to focus on the basics—the basics of living, the basics of loving, the basics of caring. What we discover often goes back to our friends at VeggieTales who sing:

Busy, Busy

Archibald (Mayor): I'm busy, busy, dreadfully busy
You've no idea what I have to do.
Busy, busy, shockingly busy
Much, much too busy for you.

Larry: Oh, I see.

Archibald and Doctor: We're busy, busy, dreadfully busy
You've no idea what we have to do.
Busy, busy, shockingly busy
Much, much too busy for you.

'Cause we're busy, busy, frightfully busy
More than a bumblebee, more than an ant.
Busy, busy, horribly busy
We'd love to help, but we can't!

Archibald: Ta ta!

What have you found yourself too busy for this new year?