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Thursday, March 28, 2024 - 06:10 AM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

First Published in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

Dog Whisperer Cesar Milan says that, if you’re hungry, you won’t have drama in your life. Cesar, who understands dogs so well that he also understands people, speaking about people in third world countries where they don’t spend food money on dog leashes, was pointing out that when you are totally focused on finding your next bit of food in order to survive, your life will not look like a soap opera. You don’t have the time or energy for it.

Let’s carry that analogy a bit further. If you’re truly hungry after God, you don’t have time or energy for the drama that is most churches. You don’t concern yourself with the deacon’s wife’s step-daughter’s mini-skirt. You don’t worry about when the music leader last got a haircut. You’re not focused on raising an extra $200 per week to pay the lease on the pastor’s BMW. You don’t fight about what color carpet to include in the sanctuary remodel. No, none of those things matter.

But church-going Christians today are “filled up” without being satisfied. They don’t hunger after God, because their spiritual stomachs have been filled with filler and hot air. (See last article, Corn Chip Christianity.) They sit down at a table and order the $100 steak, but fill up, before the meat gets there, on Baptist bread sticks and salty, savory olive oil.

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!

Until you know true hunger, your taste buds will be forever bland.

Until you’ve been through the wilderness of understanding that the church is an imposter, a fake substitute for the ecclesia, you will never begin to comprehend the depths that Jesus intended for His family, His followers, His government on earth.

Until you are sickened to the point of vomit at clergy apologists seeking to shame you for your departure from the reservation of the retarded, you will never see that God’s plan for us was never for us to be cooped up in four walls but to have dominion over the entire earth and to enjoy ALL of His creation over which He left us in charge.

But here’s an even more sobering thought, one that hits closer to home for all believers, whether in church or not: If you’re not hungrily seeking after that thing that God put you here on earth to do, you’re living in sin. That’s right: you’re missing the mark, the standard, that God set for YOU. Not what someone else is supposed to do, but what YOU are supposed to do. And if “missing the mark” seems like a ho-hum sort of problem, not that big a deal, hear how The Passion Translation describes it in Psalm 119:11 – “I consider your prophecies to be my greatest treasure, and I memorize them and write them on my heart to keep me from committing sin’s treason against you.”

So, sin is committing treason against God, but, again, the point is not that we shouldn’t sin because God is looking to spank us. Hardly. We do a pretty good job of spanking ourselves by missing out on what He has for us. We put ourselves on bread and water, as it were, instead of feasting on the 7-course gourmet spread that He has prepared for us.

All of us have been in that place. In fact, all of us, no matter how cognizant and focused we are, are in that place right now – that place of missing out on God’s best – simply because we cannot know, or we do not have the discipline and focus to learn, the depth of the riches of God in Christ Jesus. And we miss out on so much that He longs to give us.

Christine Caine says that “to thrive, we must learn to embrace our place.” That place is not identified in terms of a certain pew (or pulpit) on Sunday, but what is that place for you?

Embracing our place means that no matter what season we are in, or what our circumstances are, we have to see ourselves as important members of God’s divine relay--right where we are,” Christine continues. “We have to accept and do his will for today in light of his plan for tomorrow, and for all eternity.”

Are you content with where you are? Don’t be. It may be the meal for now, but you’ll be hungry again in a few hours. Embrace the hunger. Forsake the drama. Take the stage that God points you towards. Play the role that He has given you individually. You’ll eat well forever.

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