IDEOLOGIES

There are better and more uplifting observations of life I have been wanting to write about and share but lately my heart has been heavy on this topic because it is about the “hard things” I talk so much about. And His leading has been weighty and so I must follow that.

Jesus Christ is a God of mercy and goodness. He is also full justice and yet at the same time meek and humble. He is terrible and He is fierce but He is also good. The blood of His veins flows with compassion and at the same time He is also a God of holy fire and vengeful wrath.

Jesus is a contradiction by the standards of men and He is all the things that we are not. But once we place Christ into a box of our own making and claim He agrees with everything that we believe in than we have made a counterfeit version of Christ acceptable to our own notions .

We have made a golden calf that justifies our worldview rather than the world view He has lain out in the gospels. We must always remember, who the potter is and who is the clay, for He alone sets the standard, not men. And we must also realize that He is still the wild and unknowable God made flesh despite His revelation in that flesh. He remains incomprehensible and beyond our hamstrung reasonings in spite of our claims that we know all about His ways. When we make these claims that He thinks exactly like we do and supports all the things we are for, then we have sinned against Him, ourselves and our neighbor.

We see this unfold daily in ideologies, especially in a land where faith has been married to the ways of power. Your true enemy though, Satan doesn’t care what ideologies you align yourselves with, so long as he can twist you into being box builders and planting our standards into the soil of righteous indignation.

Remember, every movement cannibalizes its own, save one, the revolution of the cross.

Every hegemony demands subservience except one, the Lordship of the Lamb.

Every ideology creates enemies to go out and fight but one. The ideology of Love formed within Jesus Christ.

We can have our opinions and we can hold to our differing leanings. We do not have to agree on everything and this is a very healthy thing. But we must never conflate ideology placed above the throne of the one true God who is far and above our finite ways. These things are broken and ultimately, they must bow before Him admitting to their brokenness.

The reality of Jesus Christ is that He is not liberal enough nor is He conservative enough for the satisfaction of the ideology of men. And this is the folly of ideologies making claim of doing His work. His truth must be pulled enough so that it meets ideological standards. He surpasses these broken standards and by His very being, sets them to shame, for whatever good they say they do they ultimately reveal a house of cards toppled. He will never compromise His own words.

This world would have you beholden to it and its ideologies reveal themselves, either by the left or by the right to be broken and divisive. They war with men and set up foes to be scapegoats and thieves, villains and reprobates. The cycle of death and destruction plays on endlessly because of this and we never seem to learn from it.

We may claim that Christ is our Lord and we may faithfully attend our churches and tithe and we might avoid drinking or swearing and hold to all the noble Christian standards we have made but that narrow road is still perilous for reasons we might not consider. It isn’t solely narrow because of the dangers of a fallen world but because our true allegiances to Him are tested daily by outrage and media bent on breeding fear and offense. Even within the church itself, ideology has taken thick root and we are expected to stand on the right side of the culture wars or we are suspect of being compromised and “lost”.

Your adversary is in fact very good at the sly art of deception, he doesn’t parade himself in cloven hooves with a pitchfork and horns, he resides in the things that seem virtuous and which appeals to our righteous senses, he comes as a banner waver for justice and he corrupts and distorts slowly and methodically. Leading one off the narrow path is a long and steady art he has fine-tuned since Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden, because he leads in small compromises that grow and mature slowly. Division, tribalism and rhetoric are among the tools in his arsenal he holds for those who claim Christ.

Ultimately though, a full fidelity to Him is the only saving grace for a divided church and a broken land.

Ideologies of men create divisions but a firm and zealous fidelity, loving the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with every fiber of your being washes away the scales blinding our eyes to His true way.

With our allegiance unbroken by refusing tribalism we are drawn closer to see people not as enemies to be fought but as broken image bearers that Christ would have us count as our neighbors and to be the ones to carry the banner of His Ministry of Reconciliation to. - 2 Corinthians 5:11-21

After all, the first and greatest commandment for the Christian is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all of your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the Prophets.” - Matthew 22:37-40

This speaks of a full and uncompromising fealty to Christ that questions anything that sounds right and virtuous but quietly assumes its own morality and then demands unquestioning loyalty and makes enemies of the neighbors among us.

I will let you know a truth, in these brutal days you will indeed be sifted like wheat but remember whom you serve and remember the One who gave His life for you. Remember that He is fair, He doesn’t create division or slanders His image bearers. Remember that you also were once an enemy of God and despite your stubbornness He was still good and merciful to you when you deserved be cast out into death. Remember that you are to be a shining reflection of His good heart in these days were empathy and mercy are branded as weaknesses and sin.

Walk carefully and circumspectly in these evil days and be about his good work. Go out and be the healing balm to someone “other” who so desperately needs what grace He has given you today. Leave your ideologies on the ash heap and love as he has loved you. They will know we are Christians by how we live and how we love, not who or what we support.