A Crisper Christianity

A good way to describe our walk with God today is what God showed me here.  I title this "A Crisper Christianity".

Let me start with the fact I need to eat more salads.  They are good for me and they satisfy my appetite.  If I don't eat a salad, I can eat 3 slices of pizza (topped with bleu cheese), a half dozen chicken wings (dipped in bleu cheese), an order of onion rings, down a chocolate shake, and have oreos and an ice cream sundae for dessert.  And later in the evening I can make a ham sandwich with swiss and mayo on it.  And another oreo after. Or three. My favorite Oreo is the double stuff kind, but I take the top off of 2 oreos and make a quadruple stuff cookie.

  And of course if you give a Mike a cookie, he will need some milk to go with it. And if you give him some milk he will now ask for some cereal to go with it.  And the cereal will be lucky charms, and the green leprechaun will remind him of Ireland and when he thinks of Ireland he will think of the wonderful fish and chips.  And he will ask for some.  And of course he will need tarter sauce to go with it.  So it is off to Wal Mart because there is none in the cupboard.  And as he heads to Wal Mart he will pass Tim Hortons, and likely get a donut.  And if you give him a donut he will need coffee to go with it.  The coffee will be hot, so he will want to wash it down with a cold glass of milk.  And if you give Mike a glass of milk, he of course will ask you for a cookie.

The following tale was inspired by my boy's children's book collection! 

Anyway, if I eat a salad, with dinner, I am not as hungry after and I may eat a slice of pizza and 2 wings instead.  Salads seem to get my body to surrender and say, ok we are serious about this health thing. Salads seem to get my appetite in line.  That may be why it is so hard to get on the salad kick.  My flesh fights it because it would rather have lettuce on a double bacon cheddar burger than in a bowl.  It would rather have blue cheese on a slice of pizza than on some green leafy things.  I would rather have tomatoes in the form of tomato sauce.   The last thing I had that added more green to my diet was a Shamrock Shake.

There are several obstacles that get in the way of building my salad momentum.  First, my current diet is tasty and addictive and I don't have huge reasons to change right now.  I am following the American path of destruction that the food industry and the health care industry have concocted so I am slowly destroying myself and putting myself in position so only the wonderful wide world of prescription medication can keep me alive.  And if I can't afford the health insurance, I must bow down to the gods of the government to keep me healthy. Our diets leave us dependent on refined sugar and processed flour and the crack cocaine known as high fructose corn syrup.  Our dependence destroys us and our destruction makes us desperate for a deliverer that got us into this mess to begin with.   Because of our desperate need for health care which is self imposed we welcome socialism as a right. 

The first lesson for the church is serious.  Back in the 60's men of God like AW Tozer had strong convictions that most of the church is lost.  I say without apology that in my experience of every shape and form of Christianity today that is even more true today.  In 10 years of being around people and knowing that the truly saved are new creatures that naturally desire God and naturally want God and have an internal drive that drives us, the true convert is few and far between.  I think most pastors today are lost in America, most churches wouldn't even notice if the rapture hit during their services, and most Christians will grow up in the church and attend every service and be shocked to find out they spend eternity with the perverts and Satan worshippers.  Even in good solid churches I hear of an evangelist coming in and preaching and the host Pastor suddenly realizes he was never saved and gets born again!  Pastor's wives come forward and realize their long profession is meaningless!  My point is this  --- in the circles I am in (and if they weren't the most biblically sound circles in America I would head for the hills) that preach and teach being saved, examining your salvation, and salvation by faith and repentance, countless teens, leaders, and members on a regular basis testify of thinking they were saved early in life only to find out they were deceived.  If that can happen in a church that hammers salvation on a regular basis, how much more are the churches that don't even teach salvation, teach salvation is by works, teach everyone is saved, teach only the certain elect can be saved, or teach you can lose your salvation???

There is another reason why it is difficult to build salad momentum, and I think this gets to the bottom of our church crisis.  It is called the crisper.  It is in ever fridge, and it was invented by the pizzeria industry.  The crisper is the official storage place for vegetables.   It should be called the wilter.  It never keeps anything crispy, because it makes the salad and everything else in there long forgotten until you do your fridge cleaning.  When I open the fridge in my face are the oreos, and the chocolate milk.  I see the open can of vanilla frosting, I see the cheese drawer almost eye level.  I see the yogurts and chocolate puddings.  I see the high fructose corn syrup laced apple sauces.  I see everything and anything but the crisper down below.

Usually by the time I remember we have such a place, the tomatoes I bought last week are mushy and bruised, the lettuce is brown and battered, the cucumber is flexible, and the carrots are white unto harvest.  Then I throw everything out and remember my good intentions last time I went to the store.  I vow next time it will be different.  Yet the very next time, I buy all the salad stuff, make my wife a fully functional and fully loaded salad and the leftovers get stored in the crisper.  And stored.  And stored.

This is a lot like our Christianity today.  There are some of us saved and would love to serve God more.  I read stories of missionaries like Hudson Taylor and Jim Elliott and American Baptists who were pivotal in the forming of the United States Bible Belt, men like Stubal Sturnes and Obadiah Holmes.  I read of preachers like Charles Spurgeon and evangelists like Billy Sunday and men like John Wesley and my heart burns.  I long to be one of those real men of God, ones who left a legacy and left churches and who's fire lit the torches of men who were near them.  I long to escape the grasps of this modern hodge podge Christianity.  A preacher tonight described us to a "t".   We are palm tree Christians, blown where ever the wind takes us.

In America today, there is not much God because God in a spiritual way is kept in the crisper.  In our hearts, in our homes, and in our churches.  We have the world on our top shelves. Our sports idols, our Hollywood movies, our sin, our lust, our envy and self righteousness and our pride.  The false religions and new false Jesus is at eye level in the spiritual refrigerator.  On the door on big bright magnets are our accomplishments and our diplomas and our money clip.  We can open the freezer and easily have access to all that is inside, our intellect and our reasoning and the media and our resources.

God is down below, quietly there for anyone looking for a healthier diet.

On the top of the freezer is a big screen tv, always on.  

God stays in the drawer, quietly waiting until the fridge gets cleaned out and the freezer de-thawed.

He is there, we just are too distracted to notice.