HOW GREAT IS THAT DARKNESS

By Coach Dave Daubenmire
December 9, 2010
NewsWithViews.com

“But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness" -Matthew 6:23

Okay Lord, I’ll write it. But I really don’t understand why you give me these dirty jobs. Why haven’t you anointed me to write about the evil Democrats, or say, those God-haters who want to take Manger Scenes off of the courthouse steps? Why can’t I be like Ann Coulter and just expose liberals? Why do I always have to write things about folks who are supposed to be on my side?
The liberals hate me enough…why do I have to keep poking “conservatives” in the eye?

It won’t be long before I won’t be welcome anywhere in Christian circles. But I promised you years ago that I would be faithful to write and speak what you put in my spirit. As President John Adams famously said, “Duty is ours. The results belong to God.”

So, I’ll lay it out there and trust you have a reason for putting the words in my heart.

Most Christians are not. Not really disciples of Jesus that is. As I go about my work, I have become more and more convinced of that truth. The American Experience is in trouble because those who claim to be followers of Jesus really don’t follow Him.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, they “go to church,” and most “believe in God,” but they are not followers of Jesus. They don’t even know what that means...to follow Jesus…even though they are “Christians.” In fact, I doubt whether the Apostle Paul, or any of the first-century believers, would even recognize the “religion” that we call “Christianity” today. Just wondering….was Jesus a “Christian?”

Jesus hated religion. It was the “religious” folks that He tried to free us from. “But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in."

Read Mathew 23 to understand better what He had to say to “religious” leaders. He stated it better than I can.

Look. Christianity is not a religion, it is not “going to church”, it is not a set of rules and regulations after which you pattern your life, it is not a crutch for the weak, it is not an answer on the US Census, and it is not a home business designed to increase one’s earthly possessions.

Christianity is the life of Jesus living through you. It is an exchange of your life for His, a living out of His nature instead of yours, a “putting on” of the life of Jesus, not a process where you “accept” Him, or “receive” Him, or “come” to Him. It is a death process…a dying of you and your old nature…a transformation really…out of an old life to a new one. “Christ IN you, the hope of Glory.”

Most folks who identify as Christians claim to know Jesus as Savior. Very few know Him as Lord.

That’s why Christianity is so shallow in America. We love the “Savior” part of Jesus, but aren’t quite ready to bow to that “Lord” thingee. Most are interested in having “their Savior” bless their endeavors, but few are willing to “lay down their lives” for Him.

Everyone wants to “follow Jesus” until they find out where He is going…He is heading to a Cross…and He asks you to take up yours and follow Him. This flies in the face of popular Christianity and its “felt needs”…

The hearts of Americans are hard to pierce. Stephen called folks like us “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.”

How did the religious folks receive Stephen and his honest rebuke? “Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, And cast him out of the city, and stoned him…”

Here is what I am getting at. Most “Christians” are not open to the true Gospel because they already think they have it. They have learned to compartmentalize it, to compromise it, to hang it on the coat rack. But they have heard a different Gospel. They have been taught to follow Christianity, not Jesus.

[. . .]

America is the most “Gospelized” nation in the world, but my dealings with Americanized “Christians” have convinced me that the greatest mission field in the world is inside the four walls of most American churches.

The darkness thinks it is light.

“And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?”

“Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”

Most “Christians” don’t know enough about Jesus to tremble.

How great is that darkness…

Full article HERE