Thniking Outside The Box

In the American Church we often find ourselves promoting our church, our heritage, our roots, our history rather than living a life that is characterized by our daily “walk with The King”.

It is easy to slip into that trap of “this is how we always did that” or “this is what the founding fathers/mothers intended for this church to be” or “this is how we practice Christianity in the good ole USA, which is a Christian nation”.

We end up often resembling the Pharisees with whom Jesus had so many problems.

“Walking with The King” on a daily basis is work. It means we have to let go of ourselves, let go of our preconceived ideas of what our spiritual life should look like and walk with Him each day. It means being open to the direction He wants life to take that day, that week, that month – even when it doesn’t make a lot of sense at the moment. Even when that goes against what other Christians around us say our life should look like. It often means “stepping out on a limb”.

I believe that “walking with The King” is always consistent with Scripture, but not always consistent with the way Scripture has been interpreted for us.

We have a classic example in Scripture – Most Jews were convinced that the Messiah would be a politically savvy person, one who would free them from Rome’s control (or Assyria’s control, or Babylon’s control in the past). Almost no one “got it” - that the Messiah was coming to free them from spiritual bondage.

Much of Jesus’ ministry was to tell those following him, those listening, over and over that He came to bring spiritual life, spiritual wholeness – that worshiping the Father was to be “in spirit and in truth”. Even the disciples did not “get it” until after Pentecost when the promised spiritual counselor came to indwell them and help them “get it” at last.

Even after the Holy Spirit came, the Church did not understand that Christ’s return, His “second coming”, was not to be the next week, or next month, or next year. If you read Paul’s letters, he is ever looking for Christ’s return.

In a similar way I think we often don’t “get it”. We (throughout the history of The Church) work on figuring out what Jesus meant, what Paul meant, etc. and then we run with it. As human beings we are so prone to creating “a formula” and then living within the bounds of that formula.

We have TWO commandments to keep – love God with our entire being, love our neighbor as ourselves. Sounds simple, but it takes a lifetime to “get it right” and even then almost no one finishes having figured it all out.

It is SO MUCH easier to create a formula to “love God with our entire being” and then live within that formula. “Walking with The King” each day means figuring out how to love Him anew each day. That seems to be too tiring for the majority of us.

And, once I have figured out who my neighbor is, and what I have to do to show that I love her/him, then I can relax and just “do the formula”. The problem is, the neighborhood keeps changing. EXHAUSTING!!!

Walking with The King often means He reveals more of Himself to us as the journey continues and we have to adjust to our new, expanded view of God. Walking with The King often means He points our more and more neighbors and more and more needs (WAY beyond just feeding them and giving them our unwanted clothes) and we have to figure out what “loving them as ourselves” really means – usually something uncomfortable I have found.

BUT Walking with The King also means that a whole new world opens up continually, there are delights around every corner along the path, often preceded by pain I have found. To know Him, to walk with Him each day is a joy that cannot even be explained, it can only be experienced.

In future weeks in this blog we will continue to explore what we do when our churches become locked into a formula. It is a problem The Church has wrestled with for 2,000 years, and since the beginning of time in reality.

Please share your own story, your own ideas. Let’s grow together!