Into the Fire

Monday morning. The church finished with its big deal. The concert. The play. The excerpts from Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. The shock value or the gentle call. The sin forcing the crucifixion or the risen forgiveness of the Resurrection. The performance. Done.

Back to normal on the next day? The beauty and depravity contained in each day should never warrant "normalcy" in the church. The celebration of the Risen Christ takes place on one day each year just as His birth is acknowledged on one day each year. Both events are assaulted and peppered with secular holidays attempting to match the importance of the One who was born and who died and rose. 

Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Sin reigns just as intense. Forgiveness remains just as accessible.

Rising from the dead, while worth celebrating, is not the biggest miracle. After all, Jesus raised a little girl, Lazarus, and how many others from their deaths. Elijah raised the only son of a distraught woman. It happened. Not often or common, but it happened. Even today there are stories of people of faith praying for a corpse and watching their prayers propel a soul back to life.

These miracles should be documented, recorded, and read to fellow Christians around the world. These things which bring pause to almost anyone, these things which cannot be explained away with scientific conjecture – these are things that should be occurring in the church today. Celebrated. Looked forward to with hope, faith, devotion to prayer, and humble receptions of God's amazing grace.

But a large portion of the church sleeps. Stands on formula and predictability and man's scheduling and structure struggling to interpet a far more freeing order of God's preference for His people to listen to the Holy Spirit and be led by Him. Instead the church shushes the Spirit of Truth, insisting their way is best for this culture or this day and age or the expectancies of today's churchgoers. Indulging "the traditions of men".

"Easter" is past, but the Resurrection is always present in the Christian's eye. We know that Jesus rose with healing for our sin stained hearts if only we embrace the sacrifice He made for us. For everyone. We're just as filthy as the rest of mankind, but that crucifixion of our sins and the shedding of that holy Blood made us new because we believed in God's love. Not man's definition of love. God Is Love. Embodied. Defined. He decides what true love is, and we can never attain its perfection in our corrupted flesh or presume to understand its eternal riches, but Jesus showed us what it looks like. The Holy Spirit helps us understand our failings and works with us to step into His greater love and live beyond this physical realm both now and forevermore. To hear Him. In the church and out of the church.

So I ask you: why don't we?

God, I honor you. I'm desperate for your Spirit's leading. Help me to walk in the fullness of what you desire for me. Jesus, thank you for being the friend I need at all times. For your constant love. Show me your ways. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.