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| Tick tock tick tock
Feel the pressure of the clock
Forcing you into its system
Placing your head on the block
Always pushing, pushing, pushing
And we are not free
Always pushing, pushing, pushing
We can't relax and just be
So I took my clock and I smashed it
I'll let the sun, moon, and starts be my guide
I'll look at life in seasons instead bite sized seconds of time
Because things come and go in seasons
And if we live by the clock we'll die
What can you really do with a second?
Except watch it tick tock and tick by?
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| Sometimes I feel so unique and so different
Exhale - where are my avenues of mind?
Someone to explain all that I think and feel
With guard down, to speak unrefined
Who has such accepting a heart?
Today, who even has time?
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Audience
Can I write without motive?
Ambition taints these very words
"Try to be elegant try to be gorgeous"
But beauty isn't attained by striving for it
The more effort, the more monstrous
The tighter the grip, the less I hold
And the purity I seek is destroyed...
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God is sovereign, over all
He raises kings, by his hand they fall
He orchestrates, everything He's made
He brings peace to the earth, at His Word it quakes
Foolish people, are you not afraid
To worship yourselves, in a time of grace?
God is sovereign, over all
He raised you, by his hand you'll fall
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| What if this works? This dream that I dreamed...
It makes sense in a way, and it's so easy to see
Why else would these pieces be coming together?
This is the perfect storm and this, the perfect weather
God let not stewardship turn into power religion
Don't let me forget what's in Your heart for Your children
"Unless You build the house we who build it build in vain"
But if this is Your idea then make Your kings to reign
This plan is beautiful and the timing is so right
And it's finally big enough to be worth the fight
There's so much to do, God please order my steps
And raise up the warriors for the battle You've blessed
Raise them up for this is too much for me
And unveil the princess that's to be my queen
"Train our hands for war" and in how to fight on our knees
That Your kingdom may be brought in such times as these
Amen
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| Does anyone want answers any more? Or am I alone? I feel alone in looking for them. Perhaps I am late to the party and everyone but myself has found them already. I'd rather that be the case, but to me it seems doubtful. I'm doubtful if I should even write something like this. Of course it is not wrong to question things... that is until they cause someone to think about doing something uncomfortable like changing the eschatological view that he's held for the last 400 years or not voting for a candidate that they have praised and supported as part of their beloved party. Religion, tradition, political stances - these are things not easily let go, and rightly so. We are not to be "carried about by every wind of doctrine" (Eph 4:14). We build our lives on these things so I accept opposition as normal but it still frustrates me. Of course I don't believe I have all the answers but it is the seeming unwillingness to re-examine anything that I despise. When a questions is asked for which we do not posses an answer should we not seek out the answer? Are we not to know WHY we believe what we believe as well as believe it? Should we not offer arguements or proof for our beliefs? Indeed we are commanded to do so when it comes to the "hope" we have in Christianity (1 Peter 3:15) and it seems a good principle to apply to other areas of thought as well. Where are the debates? Where are the questions and answers? Where are the catechisms? Where are the refutations of opposing schools of thought with evidences and proofs? Are we so passive? Are we so lazy? Perhaps it's just business. Is business an excuse? Where are the seekers, the questioners, or those that do not swallow everything they are given to eat? It is written, "Seek and you shall find" but what of those that don't think to even seek? What will they become? Ignorance, even if it is bliss, is dangerous. "My people perish for lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:6). We are dying now and we don't yet see it.
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| Intro:
In his book That You May Prosper, Ray Sutton describes the story of King Josiah and his re-discovery of the Covenant of God (2 Kings 22-23) saying, "Josiah, however, did not stop at the reading of the covenant. He re-instituted it and brought about great reform in his society. Only then could he begin to change his culture. Only then could he re-establish the dominion of the Lord. Only then could he truly prosper! For his commitment to God’s law, God identified Josiah as the greatest king in the history of Israel: not David, and not Solomon. “And before him there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him (2 Kings 23:25)." The covenant is of the same vital importance to the people of God today as it was to the people of God in Israel in the time of Josiah. I think that an adequate idea of, and adherence to, the covenant is lacking among the people of God today as it was lacking among the people of God in the reign of Josiah in his day. Community and discipleship are based on the idea of the covenant, so without the an adequate understanding of the covenant I believe we cannot have very effective communities nor many mature disciples.
What is the Covenant?:
Steve Schilissel of Messiah's congregation in Brooklyn, NY, defines the covenant this way, "The covenant is God’s rescuing His people from that which would harm or destroy them, calling them and their children to live intimately with Him in faith, love, and obedience, fearful of displeasing Him, lovingly with one another, distinct from, envied by and as a witness to the world, in humble expectation of receiving from Him at His appointed time, everything He has promised, signed, and sealed in blood through His appointed Mediator." The aforementioned Ray Sutton points out that there are five points to the covenant: true transcendence, heirarchy, ethics, sanctions, and continuity. He goes on to explain that God, being both transcendant (infintitely higher than creation) yet immanent (active among men in past, present, and future), has ordained institutions by which he mediates his authority. These institutions (family, church, and state) being instituted by God, are therefore responsible to Him for the proper use of their authoritative power which they are to use in accordance to His written law (or ethically). Failure to do so results in cursing of the covenantal people, while sucess in doing so results in blessings. Sutton explains, "There is an ethical cause and effect relationship" for the covenantal people, meaning that blessings and curses are based on covenant-keeping or breaking, not on chance, "natural" causes, or who gets elected president, etc. God's promises of prosperity and dominion are realized or not realized in as much as His people adhere to or stray away from His law. Also, Sutton explains the covenant itself is unconditional but the terms of blessing are not unconditional. The covenant is made "official" so to speak, by God ordaining symbols (i.e. baptism and communion) to His covenant people as He adopts them into His covenantal family. The covenant is then continued through God's covenantal people increasingly taking possession of their inheritance by obedience, through discpling others, and through the teaching of the ways of God to the next generation.
So What's Missing Today?:
I believe the church is missing many of these points of covenatalism. If we, as the church, continue to believe that we cannont make an actual difference in the world because of the supposed Great Tribulation that is coming to wipe out all Christian efforts, we cannot have an adequate idea of what it means to bring the Kingdom of God in totality, or if we do, we will be poorly motivated, or if we are motivated, we are likely to seek to "witness" to individuals to get them to convert, instead of to "disciple" the nations to bring the whole earth under the dominion of God. If we, as the church, do not embrace God's law as the standard for godly living in our own lives as well as for authoritative, societal institutions everywhere (including governments) because of a misunderstanding of "under grace, not under law" as meaning "free from the Old Testament law", we will continually fail to see the ethical reasons for the decline of the church in the west today and therefore allow it to continue. If we, as the church fail to understand the covenant, we will, in all likelyhood, miss the idea that we are supposed to live as the people of God, meaning that we are supposed to live life intertwined with one another in a community of faith that has come out from among the pagans and is seperate of whom God can say, "I will be their God and they will be my people." If we, as the church, miss the idea of the covenant, we will not adequately disciple new Christians nor rightly teach our children in the way they should go which will result in a world that is not under the dominion of Christ and Christians that are mostly ineffective transformers.
Life in God:
As Christians, we have life itself! We have, explained to us in our blessed 66 books, how to bring about the Kingdom of God which IS true total individual AND societal transformation that is lasting and blessed. We have the manual for freedom, prosperity, and peace, but it seems to me that on the whole, the salt has lost its saltiness and the light of the world has grown very dim in the west. What has happened? We have accepted that things are supposed to get continually worse and we have largely shifted our focus to converting individuals only while almost entirely discounting the society that the redeemed, transformed individuals are supposed to create. We have lost the plot. Less and less we focus on bringing God's dominion to every tiny area of society. Do we even know what an entirely godly society is supposed to look like anymore? Our faith fathers envisioned it, but we have lost it. We need to recover the covenant! We need to realize again the totality of the gospel and its power to change not only individuals but societies. We need to remember that we are called to be the PEOPLE of God as a PEOPLE not just as individuals. In the next two parts of this series, community and discipleship, I hope to show how it is that Christians are supposed to be a people and that it is in the context of a people that discipleship can flourish and the world can be won for Christ.
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