What if this is as good as it gets?

In light of readings in Hosea…from a preacher who is delivering a message from God to a people who are rebellious and religious…These thoughts come to mind.

In a conversation I had with my friend Ken Smith who has been back in the pulpit of a local church after a 19 year assignment from God to travel as an evangelist around our country, we began to reflect over our lives and the work that we do as pastors.

The major problem that I have is that I am 53 years old and have lived through several generations of people who call themselves people of faith.  We are painfully different today!  The Word of God is still the same and the power of God is still available.  But things have changed!

The whole nature of the world we live in has changed.  We have more advantages than ever.  Technology has made life faster and safer.  We now can communicate faster than ever.  In just 53 years I can now sit at this computer, email a person a note, press a button and the email arrives as fast a lightening.  Texting on the phone is possible now anywhere in the world.  I get messages from Ryan Street who is in India.  I got a cell phone call from Tim Spurling while he was in Romania.  I can carry on a conversation with folk “in real time” over the internet.  I can because of cameras and the internet talk to my son and see him at the same time while he is in Maryland and I am in Florence.  I talked to Fred Kosin not too long ago while he was on assignment in the middle of the ocean serving on an island.   Unbelievable.  Changes are happening faster than we can realize.

The church has changed.  God started out in his grace building a community of faith who could partner with Him in changing not only their own lives but the world.  Now we are a group of people who serve our own religious needs.  The religious crowds care about religious activity not a vital relationship with the Father on a daily basis.  I can ask them to be involved in a family activity that is fun and benefits themselves and folk turn out for the free fun.  Begin to talk to folk about a daily walk with the Father through a daily discipline of reading the Word, seeking what He has to say to them at that moment, ask them to pray and talk to God about what He is saying and they look at you like you have five heads.  We like committee meetings, voting on the color of the carpet, and fussing about the music “we like or don’t like”.  We like to eat.   But when it comes to Worshiping God privately and publicly, getting in a small group and allowing others to be a part of your life and share life with you, and then add to the picture “missions” (giving your life away to someone else for the purpose of the furtherance of the Gospel at your cost), people look at you like you have five heads.

Israel had missed it.  They no longer were living out their daily faith in walking in relationship with God.  Hosea was called to preach to a group of people who had turned their back on this relationship with God and had opened themselves up to a walk of religious activity.  Baptist religion or cultist religion it doesn’t matter one bit.  Religion is religion.  And when people walk after religious activity and religious meetings and somehow think that is all there is to it, SOMETIMES it makes me want to say “is this as good as it gets…”  Religion drains me.  My relationship with the Father excites and restores me.

I am thankful that I get to see change in the lives of people.  I don’t want to hide my head in the sand for I do feel that when it comes to “coming to church and being religious” there will always be a line of people ready to come to church.  However, I am praying today that there is always a remnant of people who care about walking daily with God and obeying his voice.  There were none busier than the Savior who longed for those moments where he could get away and get into the presence of the Father.  He, too, lived among a people who rejected His own message and crucified him for it.  However, there was a group – a small group – but enough to change the world.

I agree with Smith.  Sometimes (and it is only sometimes) I feel like I am standing in the psych ward at the hospital and hear Jack Nicholson say as he did in the movie “As Good as It Gets”, “What if this is as good as it gets?”  After you spend time with families who are walking their marriages right into destruction, watching people ignore the very things that could bring them life and victory, you would wonder some times if the psych ward has not moved to the church house.  I will never get to the place where I submit to the theory that we simply give in and watch religion work without confronting it with the viability and vitality of a relationship with God.

I am depending on the fact that even thought the enemy has come to kill, steal and destroy, that JESUS has come to give us life – ABUNDANT LIFE!   Living in this life may be as good as it gets.  We are on this side of eternity and sins touch is everywhere.  However, HE is as good as it gets.  There is none like HIM!

One of these days we will be free from “here” on earth.  And it will get better.  Alright, I will admit that it is frustrating now.  I will admit that the assignment would be better if I could see massive revival happening.  I am seeing life change and watching God move in the lives of  folk…and for that I  am deeply grateful.  I am 53 years old and have been involved in ministerial activity for 35+ years now.  There is more behind me than before me and I am looking down the pipe at what lies ahead.  I want to end well.  I want to finish.  I want to make a difference.  I want to be God’s man with God’s message for this generation without compromising the Word of God and the heart of God.  OK, if I have to preach to a people like those Hosea has to preach to, and that is my current assignment, then God help me to be faithful.  I think God is frustrated with the condition of man’s heart.  I think He gets ticked when he looks at his people and they care about everything else but HIM and what HE wants.  I think God still sends men to declare HIS truth in the face of a rebellious crowd.  I don’t have all the answers, but at least I get to struggle with it!

Today, Father, in spite of the massive numbers of people who reject you and laugh at your guidance in government, in our communities, and in the church, I am thankful that I get to spend time in this daily assignment that allows me to rub shoulders with a group of people who long to walk with you, hear from you and allow their lives to be changed by the power of God.  I am glad that I get to live my life in front of an audience of ONE!  YOU!  I am trusting you that whether you give me the assignment to preach to a rebellious crowd and watch like Hosea did as the people of God walked right into captivity, or if you give me the chance to lead a group into the promised land, I want to be faithful.