I came up with a little saying a while back, and for some reason it seems that it could be taken as rude, curt or just wrong - the saying is:
Societal Ignorance.
"It's not that we carry out our daily lives in oblivion, but that we have grown to be the calloused point of societal ignorance."
Societal according to dictionary.com:
noting or pertaining to large social groups, or to their activities, customs, etc.Ignorance according to dictionary.com:
the state or fact of being ignorant; lack of knowledge, learning, information, etc.We do not live in oblivion. We all know many things about the world we live in, the societies it holds and the people that make up those societies. Especially in the United States. The point of this snippet of English language is this:
It is not that we are blind to the world around us, but that we idiots when it comes to people, their relationships with each other and their relationships to God. Calloused point of Societal Ignorance. We just don't find out where people truly are in their daily walk with God - we make one of two assumptions far too often - they are either saved or unsaved.
How many times do we stop and find out the Why? Why are they not saved? What is their road block to eternal salvation? What can we do to share the love of Christ with them?
If they are saved do we ever ask the Why? Why do they not serve in the church? Is there a bad experience from serving and it not working out right? Do they have a lack of self confidence in their service to the Lord?
Paul wrote in the New Testament, letters to churches that were meant to either steer the leaders and thus the church back on the right track, or to build up confidence in what the church and the leaders were doing.
The point of this? GO CRAZY.
Huh? Why is it we can memorize 5 years worth of players and their stats for our favorite {insert your sport name here} team. Why is it we can remember 3 languages (whether it be societal languages, programming languages, or something like Braille)? Why is it that we can learn and remember how to tear-down a car engine, rebuild it better and make it perform beyond the original manufacturer's spec? Because therein lies a passion for that particular part of life. A passion that generates within us a capacity to do great things with our mind, our bodies and sometimes our souls.
It is this same passion (though much more intense and very much more properly focused) that Christ took with himself to the Cross on Calvary. This passion that led him to be praying so fervently that he literally sweat blood. The same passion that He raised Lazarus with is the same passion He promises to raise the believer with. This passion made for us, a pathway to commune with our Father in Heaven - whenever we need, wherever we need. The passion with which he did the will of the Father - even though he did not want to (Matthew 26:39 - And he went a littler farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. Matthew 26:42 He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.). This is the Passion of The Christ. To do as the Father willed, not as he himself willed - to set the example of obedience, to set the example of sacrifice, to set the example of love.
Why is it we have a hard time reading (or gasp - studying) the Bible, when we seem to have plenty of time to learn all the characters of our favorite novel, their traits, characteristics, their needs, wants and desires? Yet, we have a hard time understanding, finding and learning God's traits, characteristics and His needs, wants and desires for our lives and service unto Him?
Because the enemy is strong, beguiling and most of all out to destroy us, preferably before we come to the point of salvation in Christ Jesus. Yet, even after we are saved, Satan continues to hammer us to the point of desperation - to the point that we fall on our face - many times hard, fast and what we would call "without warning". However, Christ always gives us a warning - always gives us a consequence and always gives us a way around the beguiles of the devil. This choice, commonly called free will, is ours alone to make - and oh how many times we fall on our faces, make the wrong choice, the choice that goes against the Will of the Father.
Go Crazy. What do I mean by go crazy? What if we took and gave to our service to the Lord 50% of what we give to our other passions in life? What kind of great things could we do with our lives for God? It would be unprecedented. If we took our passion for God to a higher level, what could we accomplish? We could accomplish any task that God set before us, but only because our passion was with God, for God and through God. We must have the passion for service to God, and he will, through us, work amazingly - things that we may not even be able to fathom could come down from the Lord Himself.
You see, it is not because of our abilities, our gifts or our tools that we accomplish anything, but because of the passion with which we carryout the duties that God gives to us, that He accomplishes His work through us using the gifts, abilities and tools he has prepared within us for His use. This passion that carries truth, light and the Will of God is that passion that drove Paul to become the warrior for Christ that bestowed upon us the majority of the New Testament. The same passion that took him from hating Christians to becoming a light in the dark prison hole where himself and Silas sang hymns and praises unto God in the worst of the worst. Do we have that passion? Do we have what it takes to go crazy for Christ?
