The Legitimate Warriors

Rom.12:1-3 - I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present yourselves your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.

We as followers of the Lord Jesus are called to a life of detachment from the world and a journey that seeks to be transformed into the image of Christ Himself. We are in the world, but not of the world. This is not an easy journey, and much will be of self denial. Not of food or water or other necessities of this earthly life, but of emotions and revenge and pride and so many other distasteful revelations that substantiate us and not Him. But as Paul exhorted us to not be conformed to this world, and as he spoke of being transformed by the renewing of our minds, so he also comes to this statement.

For I say through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of yourself more highly than he ought to think.

Just after he leads us to a God pleasing detachment from the world and an experiential proving of God’s perfect will, he immediately places an important caveat meant to guard against our own inflated mirror. Are we not as human followers of the Lord Christ so adroit and well versed at taking what is God’s and God’s alone and enjoying a self inflated analysis of our own importance, while of course giving lip service to Christ? And we further have an incredible inclination to overemphasize much of our personal service to Christ in terms that should be adjectives to other less known and less observed servants of the gospel.

As you read this there are tens of thousands of faithful followers of Jesus who have left the enormous comforts of this western world and have offered up their very lives as a sacrifice in the far flung corners of this world. I have sat on a dirt floor in a jungle while visiting missionaries, but I, mind you, was just visiting. Christians all over the world have no electricity, no clean water, and many have lost one of their own children to disease who might have been saved if they had lived in America. No television as we know it, they do not follow sports, no movie theatres and no ice cream parlors, and most do not consider themselves mistreated by God. But let the littlest thing happen to us and the endless stream of complaining begins that reveals it was just beyond the dam that stood quietly between a day of contentment and a day of inconvenience.

How many words of mistreatment and contempt have we endured which will first be revealed in heaven, having never been shared to anyone no matter how great the temptation, all in a sacrificial incubation that one day will rise as incense before His throne? Oh how tragic it is that we bow to our feelings and not His glory! And many missionaries are spit upon with no one to sit and listen to their bruised feelings and yet let a waitress come up short of meeting our western requirements and our offense must be manifested, no standing silent before the shearers for us. This culture has consumed so many, and yet so many violently protest their complete rejection and sterility from its grasp. We as the followers of Christ must pursue an outward manifestation that seems weak sometimes in this “I want my rights” western culture. There is power in weakness says Paul, and many times that weakness will be seen by others as timidity and will not minister any earthly feeling of self enjoyment and satisfaction. Often times it will make the flesh feel uncomfortable as your mind continues to rehearse the event with scripted pages of retorts that might have suited your own cause better, but that is not the Spirit, my friends, that is the flesh.

To be like Christ is so often not our usual and everyday goal, and a semblance of some of His nature is easily displayed among the comfort of bonded friends and family, but let the waters be troubled and what of Christ’s nature comes forth? Servants of Christ in adopted cultures in unfriendly atmospheres exhibit love when hated, silence when attacked, and mercy when treated with contempt. And He, the Almighty He, answered not a word before His accusers. If you desire to see the absolute core of the heart of Christ do not go to His rebuking of the Pharisees and doctors of the law, don’t settle in on His scourging of the Temple, no, the revealed core of the heart of the Lord Jesus came as He was allowing Himself to be impaled by ungodly sinners for ungodly sinners and He, the Great I Am He, cries out, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”. With one of His last remaining breaths He says that, and we are so willing to return civilized evil for the evil that men might do to us. An unkind word, some less than stellar service, or something that simply does not meet our standards are often met with something far less than “Father forgive them”.

So we use the cross in our doctrine but we do not want it in our lives. What is meant by taking up our cross, is it when we stop smoking? Or stop drinking? Or stop swearing? Or stop some kind of sin and with that we are satisfied? Or is it taking up our cross in a joyful self denial that inwardly substantiates and outwardly measures the life of Jesus Christ, and after a journey of death, finally gives off the sweet fragrance of His life wafting from our smoldering grave. How I despise my own appetites for my own appetites, they are the most shameful expression of how lacking my love for Him is so often. And can I gaze at the precious cross, glorious and gory, and yet not desire a cross of His choosing for me? If that be the case then I am not seeing Him, I see His payment for me alone and by that I seek to use the cross and not embrace Him who was on the cross. My heart is sometimes broken desiring more love for Him and desiring more desire itself.

And so, let me take us one step further so we may once and for all see ourselves in the light of reality and not the caricature we have created. There are servants of Christ whose lives are imperiled this very day. They have no day timer for tomorrow, for tomorrow may not come, and if indeed tomorrow comes it will be as imperiled as yesterday. Many have their beloved children in schools hundreds and thousands of miles away from the comfort of their arms, and their faith must be totally in the care of the Heavenly Father. Some have narrowly escaped death and some will die this very week. Did you hear that, my brethren, some will die this week? And yet we are tearless and fancy ourselves as the warriors of God's truth? We give our air conditioned writing they give their lives. Selah.

Some have been tortured and removed from their families and thrown in prison for naming His name. Some continue to physically rot in some prison, unable to see their families, and yet singing praises to the glory of the Risen Christ in the midnight hours. Some are quietly transporting Bibles to some needy souls who live in a country that restricts any Scripture, and yet they transport the Word of God, hazarding their lives for the gospel’s sake, and with no name on the church bulletin, and no blog to be recognized by, and no voice with which to gather a following. They do it because they have been to His cross, picked up their own, and followed the only voice they will obey. They will obey the Great Shepherd, not for any notoriety or praise, but simply for Him and His glory and their pure obscurity.

And we label our self righteous mouths as great defenders of Biblical truths while they are great doers of Biblical truth. We declare a truth war while they carry truth into the war. We argue doctrine they live doctrine. We pretend to speak for Spurgeon while they speak for Christ. And we discuss about hell and who might and should go there while they are laying their very lives across hell’s doorstep so that the Lamb that was slain might receive the reward of His mighty suffering. Pen and paper are not the armor of true warriors, and a keyboard and a screen do not a martyr make. And to say that we often think much too highly of ourselves is to so understate our sin that it must offend the English language itself, much less God’s truth.

So when we here dialogue and write and make such a pretence of our importance, remember, compared with so many others we should not think too highly of ourselves. We are believers and we are followers and we serve the Lord Christ to be sure, but let us refrain from wearing the self given monikers that suggest far too great a position of our own service. Our lives are a Disney ride while others suffer, a pleasure cruise while others serve in joyful misery, and we boast in many words while they boast in many deeds. And when ultimately compared to the Son of the Living God and all His Majesty, we are completely undone. And if you listen carefully, you can hear the servants of Christ around the world who suffer for his name, as they bow before the Lamb of God, say also,

“We are undone as well”.

Halleluiah, what a Savior!