Lukewarm
We are too busy to be the people we should be, and it scares me. It makes me cry at night. It’s not that I am being overly sensitive or critical. Something has shifted, and we are sidestepping the valuable, purposeful things in life. We are scarred little rabbits, ducking back into our safe secure holes whenever we get a moment’s free time. We allow ourselves to become distracted, and commit ourselves chiefly to ourselves. We pursue our professional enhancements with delight, often at the cost of helping the fallen find the Master. We sacrifice our babies to Molech, and they return the favor by hating God, authority, and the church life. They’d rather have what the world can give. We step over their emotional needs in the pursuit of furthering our own goals and credentials, as if they are in the way, objects. Remember, God took hold of us for a reason. He gives for building His kingdom.
Now, don’t you dare shoot the messenger. That may nullify the voice, but iy won’t address your inward discomfort (if you should be so blessed) over the sense that something about today’s Christianity lacks real life changing power and Holy Spirit potency. We must all ask the question, “Have I made any difference? Have I seen one life (besides my own) change as a result of Christ in me?”
Pat Benetar had a song in the eighties entitled: “Love Is A Battlefield”. Well, my friends, life itself is a battlefield. We wage war, not against flesh and blood, but against ancient evil forces and personalities that are hell-bent on killing people. We must be prepared to help people practically, as well as minister to them spiritually. It’s the most important work in the world, and degrees and diplomas from the finest institutions won’t mean a hill-of-beans when we face the King. He won’t judge us for trying to better ourselves. I’m saying, that when we see Him, we shall be like Him. We shall recall, perhaps even relive, by experiencing His person, His own heart, how we interfaced with the broken ones that He died to save. Did we even see them standing next to us? Did we pray for them, even if silently, but was it as immediate as their need? How about ask them if we could pray with them on-the-spot?
I know many of you do this. Many of you are too timid, fear people’s judgment. These are the same people who will stand before a Judge with real clout, an Issuer of eternal sentences. Pray God will give you boldness, and the willingness to risk embarrassment, maybe a rush of butterflies, and even to hear the word “No”. It’s all for His greater glory.
“Therefore, as the Elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.” Colossians 3:12-14 NKJV
I’ve fallen helpless on my backside,
and am being methodically dismembered.
A detail of malevolent dissemblers have come
to effect another day of plundering. They abscond
away with my choicest parts. Finding my sadness
gratifying, they joyfully proceed without reverence.
Their long shadows glide across the walls
of my dorm room. exploring its contours.
Its surface is a tattered landscape, having evolved
over twenty years of neglect, and multiple
misapplications of butter creme latex.
My familiar fiends chuckle over the decrepit
state. Who would pay to live in such a state? They
let loose a string of indignities and epithets, composing
them into an effortless aria.They always sing while they work.
The melody lingers as I wax woeful this latest loss.
They finally begin to slip back into the shadows
of my room, having sufficiently pilfered the emotional levees
I’d rebuilt since the last great raid of my inner resources.
This time was different. I’d practically served up myself for slaughter.
“I want it all gone. Nothing left by the end of the day!”
And so, I lay there in all my remains, an open-ended husk of a man.
From each of my cavernous wounds there issues a trail
of raw sinew, mixed with royal crimson purple blood.
The blood has life as its price. I fed my five thousand,
just like I’d been taught in seminary.
I have been Christ to His sheep.
This I have come to learn, though,
the sheep bite.
The Prince sacrificed something
of more precious worth than I.
His holocaust was hallowed.
I’m just a phony.
I can hear a doctrine of demons
pursuing me.
“Some fine Savior you got, punk.”
My friends never fail to spit in my wounds before leaving.
Then, one of my associates comes over.
He’s panting like an eager canine.
Perspiration runs down the sides of his mercurial face.
“My fourth riddlin t-day”, he confesses. He condemns himself,
“Don’t judge, man. Gets me ready for class.”
I can’t manage to squeeze out an edge of a word before
he bounds away chasing after his master’s ball.
I muse for a moment.
“There goes another
of the great devourers”.
Help me not to feel so much, O God!
I want your love, yet push it away
when it comes due.
I cannot seem to rest.
I fail to see your image in my own kind.
What about genuine concern?
Does our God embarrass us?
The unsavory fill our ranks.
They neither smile nor frown,
They possess an open disdain for poverty, and
conceal a contempt for its victims.
“Life is good”, reads their sabbath tee.
My life happens to be messy.
“Your God is the Creator, is He not?
It seems He cannot turn you into something useful”,
observes the cautious worldling.
Our heads belong in the dust.
Another associate draws near, a woman.
Can she dress my wounds?
No, she’s also one of the fallen.
The Daughter of Eve is held up
by frayed strings that may snap with a sudden move.
She has decided, therefore, to become an unassailable wall.
She’s keen, observing that I can’t even manage my own life.
No wonder she’s walking so fast!
She shouldn’t be so exposed,
could catch something malicious out here.
Why all these fractures? –this frenzied rushing?
Where is the board-meeting being held?
Who told you that you’d lost your momentum?
I fear to say the word, but who else will?
Better an up-and-coming dead guy.
The word becoming flesh, is: “lukewarm…
lukewarm… lukewarm”.
Chris Heidt 2008
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