Dangerous...
I just found a link to a church blogspot. Neat idea, really. The pastor puts a post in about what he preached, or will preach on the next Sunday and invites comments. Apparently he's doing a series inspired by "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". He refers to the line where Lucy asks if the Lion is "quite safe?". The answer being "Of course he's not safe, but he's good". The pastor of course asks the question "is our God is too safe...is there room in our theology for God to be dangerous?"
The interesting this is that in the responses a guy writes that God is definately dangerous...and then proceeds to say that the moment he got saved, Satan stood up and took notice, and has been fighting him ever since. That as long as he wasn't "saved"...the devil left him alone, had no interest in him. A friend had told him the day he got saved that "Now the hard part begins"...every day for the rest of your life!!
How sad! The question asked is "Is God dangerous" and the answer is "Yes, the devil is dangerous". What happened to God?? Where did he go?
I hear this comment all the time. "The closer we get to Jesus, the harder the devil fights, the more interest he has in you"...the message being, "Well, if you want to get close to Jesus, you'd better be ready for a fight, it's a noble idea and all, but risky, do you think you're up to it??" I guess in this way of thinking God is dangerous...because he sits high up on a throne somewhere...tells you to "get up here, or else...", and has you run the gauntlet of near death danger and fear to get there, while he sits back and waits for you to mess up so he can squash you. Only the very strong survive. But it's not really Him that's dangerous...cause He's good.
I guess we missed the part where Jesus took our place, cleared the way, won the fight, defeated the enemy (I have a picture in my mind of a one man Ninja hero, fighting off hundreds of bad guys, while jumping over swinging things designed to kill you) so that I can walk clearly and boldly up to the throne.
PS. Ask a crack addict, or a glue sniffing child in the slums, or an idol worshiping native, or any other desparately lost soul, if the devil has no interest in him, if he has no plans to destroy them, to steal from them, and to kill them...or if he just "let's them be" until they dare to draw near to God. It's only when we attempt to draw near to God (apart from Christ) that we realize what a death grip the devil has (or had) on us. He had us bound up pretty good, but we only noticed it when we pulled. Lucky for me that Jesus came in and tied up the bad guy, and cut off my ropes, so I could walk away free...cause I was hooped.....
The interesting this is that in the responses a guy writes that God is definately dangerous...and then proceeds to say that the moment he got saved, Satan stood up and took notice, and has been fighting him ever since. That as long as he wasn't "saved"...the devil left him alone, had no interest in him. A friend had told him the day he got saved that "Now the hard part begins"...every day for the rest of your life!!
How sad! The question asked is "Is God dangerous" and the answer is "Yes, the devil is dangerous". What happened to God?? Where did he go?
I hear this comment all the time. "The closer we get to Jesus, the harder the devil fights, the more interest he has in you"...the message being, "Well, if you want to get close to Jesus, you'd better be ready for a fight, it's a noble idea and all, but risky, do you think you're up to it??" I guess in this way of thinking God is dangerous...because he sits high up on a throne somewhere...tells you to "get up here, or else...", and has you run the gauntlet of near death danger and fear to get there, while he sits back and waits for you to mess up so he can squash you. Only the very strong survive. But it's not really Him that's dangerous...cause He's good.
I guess we missed the part where Jesus took our place, cleared the way, won the fight, defeated the enemy (I have a picture in my mind of a one man Ninja hero, fighting off hundreds of bad guys, while jumping over swinging things designed to kill you) so that I can walk clearly and boldly up to the throne.
PS. Ask a crack addict, or a glue sniffing child in the slums, or an idol worshiping native, or any other desparately lost soul, if the devil has no interest in him, if he has no plans to destroy them, to steal from them, and to kill them...or if he just "let's them be" until they dare to draw near to God. It's only when we attempt to draw near to God (apart from Christ) that we realize what a death grip the devil has (or had) on us. He had us bound up pretty good, but we only noticed it when we pulled. Lucky for me that Jesus came in and tied up the bad guy, and cut off my ropes, so I could walk away free...cause I was hooped.....
posted by toomanywhatifs at
8:47 AM
1 Comments:
I totally agree. What happened to Jesus being our Savior? When did we have to start saving ourselves? I think the idea that the closer we get to Jesus, the more opposition we face is born of pride. We like to think that it is OUR fight, not his. We say things like "It's really been a struggle" or "I'm just trying to fight the good fight." Whenever someone tells me that they are fighting or struggling, I get the impression that they feel very alone, as if this is a long lonely path they are walking where they receive no help. My thought are that as long as we are fighting, Jesus will let us fight until we are exhausted and give up completely. Then he steps in and easily rescues us again. I think the whole Christian life is about learning to give up. Giving up is harder than fighting--it hurts our pride too much.
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Anonymous, at 12:13 PM
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