DIVERSENESS

I Was Just Thinking About – DIVERSENESS.

Jesus Christ prayed (John 17) that His followers should be one just as the Triune God is one. When one looks at the twenty-first church, does it represent any similarity to the prayer of Jesus Christ for His followers? No! Diverseness is defined as: “of a different kind; unlike.” The synonyms are descriptive: “varied, dissimilar, separate.” Why are these entries definitive of the contemporary church?

One of my favorite authors and devotional writers is Dr. A.W. Tozer (1897-1963). One of his entries was on the topic of Compromising Crosses. He observed: “Strange, is it not, that we dare without shame to alter, to modulate the words of Christ while speaking for Christ to the very ones for whom He died? Christ calls men to carry a cross; we call them to have fun in His Name. He calls them to forsake the world; we assure them that if they but accept Jesus the world is their oyster. He calls them to suffer; we call them to enjoy all the bourgeois comforts modern civilization affords. He calls them to self-abnegation and death. We call them to spread themselves like green bay trees or perchance even to become stars in a pitiful fifth-rate religious zodiac. He calls them to holiness; we call them to a cheap and tawdry happiness that would have been rejected with scorn by the least of the Stoic philosophers.”

His background text for this descriptive observation is Matthew 10:38–39, “Anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” He adds the thought: “We've fashioned crosses of gold to wear around our neck or on our lapel. We place crosses on church steeples. Have we forgotten that for Christ the cross was an instrument of death? And our cross for us is a means of death to self.” He then added a prayer that would serve us all to pray: “Forgive me, Lord, for trying to take cross-bearing out of my daily life. It is not innocent fun I need, it is holiness.”

What is his objective in the devotional? How could all of this be summarized in a very succinct and poignant way? A general heading attached to his commitment and viewpoint is: “The Choice – Happiness or Holiness?” His personal devotional life revealed the heart of a man who was committed fully to the Lord. On one occasion, he noted (Whatever Happened To Worship?): “In some circles, God has been abridged, reduced, modified, edited, changed and amended until He is no longer the God whom Isaiah saw, high and lifted up (Isaiah 6).” On another occasion, he wrote (Success and the Christian: The Cost of Spiritual Maturity): “The only fear I have is to fear to get out of the will of God. Outside of the will of God, there’s nothing I want, and in the will of God there’s nothing I fear, for God has sworn to keep me in His will.” He also shared his inner desire (The Counsellor): “I want the presence of God Himself, or I don’t want anything at all to do with religion. You would never get me interested in the old maids’ social club with a little bit of Christianity thrown in to give it respectability. I want all that God has/is, or I don’t want any.”

When Jesus stated in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (justice), for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6), what did he intend for His followers? It is obvious that Jesus Christ wants His people to be in the arena and representing Him. The way He lived His life, he expects us to live our lives. Arena-living is summed up in Matthew 5:11-12 (ESV), “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” In the NLT, it is rendered: “God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way.”

Prayerfully – consider these things with me.