Making Sure Everyone Was Having a Good Time

"In my early years of ministry, I was quite idealistic, thinking that most people in the congregation expected me to be the captain of a warship leading God's troops into battle to change the world," he writes. "As the years passed, I became increasingly convinced that most people wanted me to captain the Love Boat, making sure everyone was having a good time."     Mike Huckabee

Lord help us.   How often has this become the case.   "Don't make me uncomfortable.   Just keep me entertained."   The attitude is there.   We all know it's out there.   That is Laodicea of the book of Revelations.   When translated into English, "Laodicia" is about equivalent to the word, "democracy."   Everyone looking out for what they personally like.   People like a church that is like the Love Boat with a captain who never makes them reach  spiritual heights and stimulates their intellects while keeping them entertained.

When the government tries to change the world, on the other hand,  it always seems to change it into something that looks ugly, even when it uses Christian terminology to sell the changing.   But the church is supposed to turn the world upside-down.

Turning the world upside-down

This capsizing is not accomplished by using the government to coerce the unbelievers into helping the poor.   It's not by trying to redistribute the wealth to make everything "fair."  

So, what is God's plan?

The plan is that "we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ," just like Ephesians chapter 4 tells us.   Until that day comes, with the veil of flesh taken away from our faces, we see the glory of the Lord as if looking in a mirror and are transfigured into the same image from glory to glory.   All of this happens by the Spirit of the Lord as 2 Corinthians 3 says.   And we are not squeezed into the world's mold but we are transfigured by our minds being renewed as we read in Romans 12.   The Holy Spirit, of course is the One who renews our minds.   When the final event happens, it will change everything.   The whole creation is waiting for the unveiling, and we ourselves also are groaning along with all of creation for the redemption of our bodies as Romans 8 points out.  

Almost all of the New Testament is written to saved Christians telling us how to do this, and it's not through self-effort any more we could have been born again by self effort.   It's a free gift if we will just accept it.

How could anyone exchange all of that for a desire to be entertained and to have a good time?   Laodicia.

What is your name?

God is asking us all, "What is your name?"   I hope we can realize that we are not the old flesh.   That is not what we are.   We are the new creature, the Christ in us the hope of glory, the servant of the Most High God.   Satan and our flesh are trying to tell us otherwise, but the Spirit of God, Who lives within us, is telling us that we are no longer part of Satan's own.   We are sons of the King.  

We need to let the King reign from within.