Gnats and Camels By: Danny Wallace Will wonders never cease? Could we be living in the NEWSFLASH era of History? The headlines read, “Christians surpassed straining at a gnat, and completely swallowed the camel.” The things we have decided to focus on in the name of the Lord truly astound me. We have become the living example of majoring in the things that don’t matter, and skipping class altogether on the things that truly do. Just the other day a dear friend shared with me that a church in her area had been “all hands on deck” during the 2014 Burger King / Gay Pride Burger promotion. I could almost see her sweet smile as she responded, “What to do,” before sharing that her husband thought they should buy some of those burgers and pass them out just to prove that a burger is a burger, and hungry, is still…hungry. While the religious crowd rushes to boycott Burger King over the purpose and name of a burger, I can see Jesus stepping in to buy a truckload of those same burgers to feed the hungry. Does anyone figure that a homeless, or hungry person will know the difference between a Gay Pride Burger and a regular ole’ burger? Jesus used this same logic with the religious crowd when He asked them if placing their hand on the Torah made their promise any more real, or is a promise simply a promise, even if you have your hand on a Gay Pride Burger when you make it? Right along those same lines I recently read of a restaurant owner in the Deep South that is giving a nice discount to those who pray before a meal in his restaurant. I suppose the owner of a restaurant can do anything he wants, although I don’t see the purpose of such a gesture other than, “Come, and watch the Christians pray.” Jesus wondered why the religious crowd loved to pray public prayers just to be “seen” of men. I wonder what He would think of being “seen” so we can get an added discount? Are we so far from the cross that we’ve missed the point of His sacrifice this deep, and this wide? The headline, “Strain at a gnat to swallow a camel” certainly applies. What happened to simply “being,” rather than advertising that which we only dream of being? We seem to be living in a time of “look at me,” or “come, and see God’s favor on my life,” rather than allowing a river of love to flow from the cross of Christ that is ours by the absolute sacrifice of another. This much is clear. Jesus said that when we do “Christian” deeds – things like, feeding the poor, clothing the naked, or sacrificing ourselves in any way whatsoever for another, we are not to let our right hand know what the left hand is doing. Our Papa sees, and our Papa understands our true motive. Likewise, we were never asked to check the promotional name of food before deciding to buy it. Only a fool believes there is a difference between an Atheist Burger, a Gay Pride Burger, and a Christian Burger. We feed a person with the food, not the name. Names are for the continued arguments of those who have lost sight of the purpose of food, or the need of people. Jesus also asked, “Why do you pray your loud prayers in public to be seen of men? And why do you babble on, and on, and on, as if you didn’t know God at all? When you pray, go to a private place and tell your Papa what you need. He will hear you, and He will always answer you.” Maybe we missed the mark the day we decided to “Stand on the Word,” believing that “Word,” to be our favorite version/interpretation of the bible? I don’t know. Whatever the reason, only a fool is content to march on in powerless foolishness, rather than take flight in sacrificial love. What I do know is that we surely left the road and headed for the religious ditches of life the moment we substituted “anything” for the living Word of God, that is Jesus Christ, our Lord. We need a blood transfusion in every way. We certainly need a baptism in the transforming blood of God’s sacrificial Lamb. However, since most Christians are more focused on the bible as a means of seeking to justify the lunacy of boycotting burgers, or praying for discounts, maybe what we really need is a good baptism in the RED WORDS of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In reading the words spoken by our Lord, we soon discover that the childish things of religion that once help us captive, separated, and publicly foolish, have long since been relinquished for the healing peace of a destiny in Jesus. One thing is for sure. We will no longer fear missing an argument over what matters to religion. Instead, we will tremble over the possibility of majoring in something that doesn’t matter to Jesus at all.
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 13:23:11 +0000
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