Follow The Rules In The Rulebook

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.’ (James 1:17)

I saw a ‘meme’ recently with a quote, ‘Biblical Christianity is Unpopular, Popular Christianity is Unbiblical.’  This goes in line with something we touched on a while back; true Christianity is never progressive.  To be progressive, to change to stay ‘popular’ is antithetical to the definition of the Triune God.  God (with Jesus & the Holy Spirit) is never changing; He is the same today as He was before Creation and will be after the End of Time.  To be blunt, God does not necessarily care what you think or what you feel when it comes to His ways or His plan.  He does care for you and loves you infinitively (John 3:16) but your opinion on how He expects His Church to be run doesn’t matter, unless your opinion is in lockstep with His instructions.

We humans do not like bluntness; we always think there should be wiggle-room in our relationships and not come with conditions.  God loves us unconditionally, with the provision that to join Him we agree to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior and by doing so repudiate our sinful nature.  To try to change this is to be progressive, or engage Christianity as a popularity contest.  Christianity is an exclusive ‘club’; it has a criteria for membership and it cannot and does not tolerate exceptions.

Biblical Christianity is not discriminatory in ‘who’ or ‘how many’, but on whether a person agrees or disagrees with the provision God has to enjoin with Him.  Those provision is simple; accept and believe Jesus is your Lord and provides Salvation, repudiate your sinful acts and ask Him for forgiveness of those sins, and agree to follow His precepts and the directions of His Word. Follow the rules in the rulebook – the Bible. Those are God’s terms, and no one can join His ‘club’ on their terms. No matter how many want to ‘join the club’ on their terms (“I follow Jesus and the Word, but…”) and go as far as pretending they are in the ‘club’, they are not in the ‘club’.

As James proclaims, God never shifts positions on anything – period.  He acts, never reacts; He only has original thoughts, never second guessing Himself.  Everything God allows, and everything God provides, is good and perfect.  We see things from the human perspective and ‘right/wrong’, or ‘good/bad’, but we need to see things from God’s perspective; Hurricane Ian was a blessing as God allowed it to happen.  It may not seem like a blessing, with all the damage it caused, but the number of people who gave their lives over to follow Christ and to allow Florida Baptist Disaster Relief to evangelize in our neighborhoods is a blessing.  Shingles and fences can be replaced or mended, but a soul lost for eternity is gone forever.

When we take the exclusiveness out of the Church to have more (illegitimately) join the ‘club’, we are lying to those who join under false pretenses.  How many ‘I can be my own person and make up my own rules to follow’ folks, are under the false impression of ‘I’m going to Heaven’ because of those churches who promote exceptions – exceptions that don’t exist?  We who follow the Word to the letter don’t want or need Jesus to ever change; if He changed how can we trust Him to hold onto that which He has promised? 

I pray that I remain ‘unpopular’, I pray that I if others see me as someone who clings to my Bible as the only rule book to follow, that they have the reaction of ‘he’s not with the popularity program’.  From that, I pray they ask ‘why’, so that then they may see the Spirit within me, see a reflection of Jesus, and change themselves.