Whacked Up and Jacked Up

Last night, a pastor on a professional social media site reached out to me to read about his book and give my opinion.  The book’s focus was on the American church not following Jesus’ command to go and make disciples, and therefore becoming a dying church.  The theme of this book triggered my thoughts of how many other commands we as followers of Christ do not obey, which in turn leaves us whacked up and jacked up.  Pardon me if you do not understand my slang, but for purposes of this post whacked up as defined by https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com is “to damage someone or something,” and https://www.urbandictionary.com  defines jacked up as “in a state of disarray.”

Let me unpack this a bit.  Not only are we not going as a church into ALL the world because it is not convenient or comfortable for us, but we dismiss many of God’s commands making our churches dens of demons instead of holy houses of worship to our Lord and Savior.  Ouch!!! You may think I am being a bit harsh.  Well then, let’s go straight to the Word. 

And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a robbers’ den.”  Matthew 21:12-13

The devil comes to steal, kill and destroy and we have given him an open door to do so in our churches because of our lack of obedience to God’s Word.  How many church leaders do you see exchanging prayer cloths, oils and water for desperate people’s money?  There are far too many.  It is all about self and putting “me” first, which is against God’s Word, which states that we should be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor. (Romans 12:10). 

Our focus on self even goes into our relationships.  Many marriages in churches fail because they are demonically inclined.   We run ahead of God and marry a man or woman who He didn’t ordain for us and then we expect Him to bless the marriage.   We will even go as far as saying that God was the one who put the two together.  If we believe that God has put the marriage together, then we better stay in His will and work on keeping it together.  The truth is we make God look schizophrenic through our actions.  We say He told us to get married to a certain person and a couple years later, He is the same God who wants us out of the marriage.  This is all our flesh and not God.   I wish we would stop using His name in vain.  God is not a man that He should lie and we are making Him out to be a liar, when the devil is the father of lies.  So, who then is really our father when we live in our fallacies? We make a mess of marriage, which is supposed to depict Christ and His church, the husband being the head and the wife being the body. God’s purpose for marriage is kingdom building, not just self-fulfilled pleasure.  But, we want to do things our way, leaving behind God’s holy commands about marriage.

Many of our churches are built by pleasing man and not God, discarding Jesus as the Chief Cornerstone in its spiritual edifice.  We are then on shaky ground, not standing on the solid Rock.   We follow worldly strategies and expect supernatural results.  Now, that is truly whacked up and jacked up as we cause damage to ourselves and others leaving the body of Christ in disarray.  God is grieved.  Yet, we want His mighty move in our willful rebellion against Him. We may not think of ourselves as rebels, but we are when we carry out our own plans and do not align with His Spirit. 

“Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the Lord,
“Who execute a plan, but not Mine,
And make an alliance, but not of My Spirit,
In order to add sin to sin.  Isaiah 30:1

We keep on adding sin to sin, taking Bible verses out of context to underpin our lack of surrender to God’s will.  Yet, God is merciful and compassionate waiting on us to turn from our wicked ways and to run to Him. 

Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you,
And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
How blessed are all those who long for Him. Isaiah 30:18

God is waiting for His church to long for Him, and to seek His kingdom first and His righteous.  He will not withhold any good thing from us, but we must trust Him to lead us.  Where He takes us may not make sense to us, but there is purpose, so we should obediently follow Him. 

Seek the Lord while He may be found;
Call upon Him while He is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
And let him return to the Lord,
And He will have compassion on him,
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon. Isaiah 55:6-7

When we are in God’s will, then we will live in the supernatural.  Miracles will abound as we draw closer to Him, thinking His thoughts and walking His ways.  So, as a new year and new decade begins let us resolve to be in God’s will – going where He tells us to go and doing what He tells us to do.   And as we obey His command, we will not only show our love to Him, but we will also be His love to others.