I’m so ashamed. There was but a moment that I was in waiting – a moment that I wasn’t so sure of God’s plan because it seemed that our resources had run out. That moment now is passed, and I am ashamed of my thoughts and my sins in that time. Brittany - my career and ministry partner - told me last night that we've been asked to make a documentary for the next couple of months. I need to start researching and writing for it right now already. It will pay and it will be quick, and it will do everything we want it to do, really.
I heard that, and instead of being elated over the new opportunity and God’s provision, I realized one thing – I was not content with my wedding engagement to Christ. He always gives me sweet engagement presents, and I get super anxious if he doesn’t. What kind of a bride is that? I’m like a freaking’ diva from Beverly Hills. He already put a fat ring on my finger, and yet I’m demanding to be pampered with stupid little gifts all the way up until the wedding. If I were him, I’d get cold feet. Isn’t he enough? Aren’t I ecstatic over just the anticipation of the wedding? Apparently not.
And that hurts me. It doesn’t anger me. It hurts me. It shames me. I can’t just spend time with my fiancé and enjoy it. I have to be wealthy and prosperous and comfortable and famous too. It makes me question my intentions. Am I a gold digger? Or am I in love?
I like that phrase here – a gold digger. I think lots of people around here are gold diggers with Jesus. That’s the whole reason they call themselves Christians. It’s the whole reason they took the ring. In honesty, lots of people don’t even have a ring; the whole engagement is just a big illusion, and what they’ll get when they die is far different than the wedding ceremony they’re expecting. Their lamps are going to run out of oil, and when their bridegroom comes, he won’t even take a glance their way; he’ll have his eye on his bride.
Britt and I continued the conversation over the phone as I lay on the bed in my parents’ room, away from the noise of the rest of the house. We both exclaimed how unprepared we are for our calling – how famous the both of us want to be, and how sinful that is. What a wicked thought: fame. I can’t wait until I get to Heaven and meet the martyrs that had been abandoned by their Muslim families, persecuted by their communities, tortured and finally killed because they wouldn’t take off their ring. They’ll be famous.
I watched a sermon that Paul Washer spoke at a youth conference in 2002, and the message he gave was painful; he knew that many in the auditorium would go to Hell, and he knew that Christianity in America is mostly wrong, and he knew that, as he read, many will come to Jesus and say, “Lord, Lord, did we not do so many things in your name?” And he will turn their foreign faces away, leaving the weight of their wicked greed on their shoulder to sink them to the depths of the abyss. The path is narrow, and we need to remember that.
Aaron Newkirk explained at Bible Study last night that Christianity started in the Middle East, then traveled up to Europe as Asia Minor turned it’s back. And when the Catholic Church had done its damage, the blessing moved to North America. For hundreds of years we have been blessed, but today, we are in a spiritual recession that I fear will never end, while the persecuted church in China grows at exponential rates with believers that understand what it means to marry Jesus.
We’ve got to stop putting God second and start producing ETERNAL fruit. We have to stop pursuing the American dream because it’s going to end when we wake up! If you have money, stop wasting it on pointless things, and start giving to missionaries. Start giving food and clothing to the poor and love to the destitute, because if you have Christ, love is abundant, and wealth, prosperity, and comfort are LUKE WARM WATER (Rev 3:16-17). Run away from those things – not to them; they're poison to our faith.
And I speak to myself as well, since I am such a favor-hungry gold digger for Jesus. Maybe I’m being hard on us. Or maybe we’re actually wealthy snobs. Just consider this – if you know one missionary who isn’t on the mission field because they don’t have the money, consider them while you Christmas shop the halls of Best Buy “celebrating” the birth of Jesus, who you aren’t proclaiming in your workplace let alone in a persecuted Church of the Middle East. Don’t know a missionary in need? Meet 18-year-old Amanda Kirchem http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001203310948 who is doing her Discipleship Training School with YWAM in January and then traveling to one of four or five foreign countries for three months, spreading the gospel to the lost. She still needs a few thousand bucks for the whole thing, and her three jobs might not do it for her in time.
What a perfect time for Christmas to come. I need to remember just how RIDICULOUS it is that Jesus would manifest himself as a human just to propose to me. Merry Christmas everyone!
-Phil
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