CAN A PERSON HAVE FUN, BE HAPPY AND SUCCESSFUL WITHOUT GOD? We do God an injustice when we peddle Christ as the do-it-all cure like an As Seen on TV commercial. If a Martian dropped onto earth and watched some of our Christian TV or listened to our messages or conversations, he would think Christians never get sick, are never poor, drive BMWs, have the most friends, have the most fun, and have no worries. Thats a pretty good gig, if you can get it. On the other hand, the Martian would learn that a sinner never has fun, if he does, he regrets it each morning, is always sick, poor, downtrodden, and has no friends. I wonder, in Gods court, if they handle charges of false advertising? The Waltons didnt become the richest people in the world due to their spirituality. Neither did Bill Gates, Warren Buffet or Ophah! These were gifted, passionate, focused and often shrewd people. The entertainment industry of Hollywood, the music industry, the nightclubs, the sports industry, the street drug enterprise, far surpasses religious revenue. The revenue for sports is $17 billion a year. The revenue for the music and entertainment industry is $546 billion a year. So giftedness and success are not exclusively Christian. In the church, we associate good speaking with anointing. So all good and emotional speakers are anointed? I attended, what I believe to be the last campaign rally of Richard Nixon in 1968 in San Antonio. Dale Robertson and Dezi Arnez were highlighters. Had I not heard the word and just observed his charisma, roaming the stage, waving his arms and stirring thousands to his feet, I would have felt Dick was a Pentecostal evangelist. Yet, nary a drop of anointing flowed through his veins. The great cult leaders were emotional and dynamic speakers, yet were the farthest from God. A huge church must be a godly church? Right? Wrong. The same methods Sam Walton used to build the largest store chain in the world are used to build great churches. Its all about public relations. I visited Willow Creek, the creator of the Seeker-Senstive Church movement. They introduced their Producer. That set me back, but then I thought of how Evangelical and Pentecostal churches plan their services. They produce them by planning the songs of the day and the order of service. And, when all the goosebumps settle down, we walk away proclaiming that God was in the building this morning. A person can have a happy and the appearance of a successful life just by following the principles I harp on, school, work, faith marriage, and decency. It wont get them the Heaven, but theyll have a good life. So lets not discount the successes of the unchurched nor exaggerate our successes by limiting God to temporal affect. We serve God not to get, but out of a compulsion to worship Him, “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.” The Bible offers several motivations for our service. We want to serve God because “we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken ”because our service supplies, according to 2 Corinthians “the needs of the Lord’s people” because our service proves our faith and causes others to praise God, and because God sees and rewards our labor of love. Many people succeed on earth for copying Biblical principles of interpersonal relations, morality and hard work. (Capitalism is all through the Bible. John Calvin actually reintroduced Capitalism to the world.) The concept of Christianity is at the root of most progress. The eastern world thinks circularly, like a philosopher who talks in circles and often lands back at the beginning. But Christianity speaks of a lineal perspective. One is conceived in the mind of God, conceived of his parents, born, learns to smile, communicate, crawl, walk, go to school, go to work, date, get married, have a family, succeed in life, grow old, die and go to Heaven. Men would slave away at a workbench and ponder life and relate it to work and realize that progress is an integral part of both life and work and develop innovations. So, one can emulate the Christian experience and reap earthly rewards at work, home or church. But one can also emulate Christs walk and be pleasure in Gods heart and reap an eternal reward. - CMH
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 14:15:44 +0000
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