Nov | 20 | The Frozen Chosen & The Daring & Dangerous Disciples

Key Word:- OBEY

Title:- The Frozen Chosen & The Daring, Dangerous Disciples

Luke 7:34, 35 The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, “Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” But wisdom is justified by all her children.

The longer I live and the more I see grace bend and reach in its attempts to gather and to embrace those that are contrary to the gospel, the more I see the rise of religious protectionism. Such protectionism dresses itself up in the most seemingly righteous of garbs. The oldest of fashions worn by such ‘Evangelical Protectionists’ is that tasty little number called ‘defending the truth once delivered to the saints.’ This is rich and well hung material, draped over the whole being and covering the total body from the 'paps' to the pavement, making sure there is nothing to embarrass or reveal. It is a full, four season ensemble and its various forms are called:

‘protecting the pulpit’,
‘turning our nation back to God,’
‘defending our children,’ and
‘standing firm on the Word of God.’

Honestly, any one of the four of these striking little numbers, make the wearer look as awesome and self righteous as the Statue of Liberty holding the burning lamp of freedom and like Lady Liberty, the wearers of these fine garments are also in pristine condition, well kept and stuck on an island; whose only use now is to stand as a neat, judgmental and theologically well stocked museum as to what once was a living gateway into a new and exciting life.

John the Baptizer, that preacher extraordinaire, was substantially different to Jesus in both his deportment and delivery. These museum keepers I write about watched him and then caricatured him as ‘possessed by demons’. Jesus came eating and drinking, and yes it was wine and yes it was alcoholic, and some of it was home brewed at Cana and these SAME pristine protectionists bedecked in their fine and righteous clothes watched Him closely as well and concluded that He was a glutton and drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Jesus mixed with the wrong crowd in the wrong way, yet was gracious to instruct the pristine protectionists regarding His methodology in saying that grace comes in many forms and in the end the wisdom of such a delivery is respected by those with true blood ties.

Today, Ellis Island is now closed and the Statue of Liberty is simply another well maintained national monument. People appear to be coming into America, the land of liberty, through completely different ports and by surprisingly different means. Students of Kingdom immigration should take note of this.

Grace today has moved many Christians to remove themselves from simply standing and shining, to practicing and proclaiming in daringly provocative ways. These gracious Christians, swimming in true liberty and freedom are dangerous people to the protectionists. These are people of grace who have left the well kept boundaries and ventured abroad with The Message, and ‘it’s dangerous Jerry, very, very dangerous!’ - for Kingdom immigration has always been a messy business and never neat and tidy. It always will be.

Should you be under the impression that I am advocating a social gospel, let me assure you that I am! From the get go, the gospel has always had a social impact, it always has and let’s never forget it. It is time for Lady Liberty and the Puritanical Protectionists to hitch up their fine skirts, step off the island and take that burning torch out into the milling mass of fallen and foul humanity. When the peculiar people, the strange and statuesque, get the blood of aids victims on their clothes, the stench of the poor in their nostrils and are seen to weep over the maimed and legless, blind and burned victims of war, then maybe Christianity will turn from its plummeting decline and begin to live again in our land.

So there is trouble brewing and I think there needs to be, for once statues start walking and start talking, start reaching and start embracing, they turn into human beings! That’s a blessing to those to whom they go, but a curse to those whom they leave behind. Where shall you pitch your tent today? Amongst the frozen chosen, or amongst the daring dangerous disciples of the Lord?

Listen:- The wicked shall be turned into hell, And all the nations that forget God. For the needy shall not always be forgotten; The expectation of the poor shall not perish forever. Arise, O LORD, Do not let man prevail; Let the nations be judged in Your sight. Put them in fear, O LORD, That the nations may know themselves to be but men. Psalm 9:17-20

Pray: - MY JESUS, MY SAVIOUR, Lord, there is none like You. All of my days I want to praise, the wonders of Your mighty love. My comfort, my shelter, Tower of refuge and strength, let every breath; all that I am, Never cease to worship You. Amen.