Jesus Wrapping Paper

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12:2

Hello readers.  Welcome to my heart.  Let's begin. 

My my my.  Claude what are you doing?  And just to say from the start, this is not a battle cry against anybody I may mention in this blog.  I do not ever intend to judge someone's ministry.  I will trust that if you're truly seeking God through the ministry that you just consider my thoughts, and run them by God.  If He says ignore me then off you go.  I don't take pride in my views so there will no hard feelings.  Which means unnecessary rebuking emails are not allowed.  (Gotta love disclaimers. They really set the tone.)  


And what's about to be beautiful about this topic is that I have no idea where the solution is.  Usually when people have a problem with something then its best if they can provide a solution, no...not here.  Mainly because there is no true "sin" in the matter.  This is more a presentation matter.  So what are we presenting?  Is it Jesus in His truest form? Or is it deception for Jesus's sake?  I decided to share my extremes first to maybe get my point across better.  

Would we hold a gun to someone's head, threaten to pull the trigger, and then share the gospel with them?  Is pornography filmed by married people acceptable?  Would we get drunk just to walk into a bar to minister?  Would we seek employment in a brothel just to share the word of God with the women and men involved with it? Does all these seem pretty much no no's?  

If you answered yes to the first question.  Now ask this question.  Why? 

Because these methods would be using deception to minister.  This would be lowering the standard just to minister Jesus Christ to a dying world.  This would mean like dying, and then lying in your tombstone and talking about Jesus to the other dead people.  Doesn't make much sense does it?  

Back up to the scripture.  Romans 12:2 says, "Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world...." Now I decided to look up "pattern" and with its many definitions, these three were in context with the text.  1. a form or model proposed for imitation. 2. something designed or used as a model for making things. 3. a reliable sample of traits, acts, tendencies, or other observable characteristics of a person, group, or institution. So....if we used definition 1, it would be paraphrased as, "Do not conform to imitating the world."  Defintion 2, "Do not conform to making things by using the world as a model." Definition 3, "Do not conform to the traits, acts, tendencies, or other observable characteristics of the world." 


So, my fellow brothers and sisters in the body of Christ, have we decided to wrap the world in Jesus wrapping paper?  "Let's make Jesus more presentable to the world, since He's kind of not that interesting by Himself." And now, I know what some of you may be thinking.  This sound like some old religious type stuff.  And we can honestly argue everything that's considered a 21st Century effort to spread the word of God and probably find Pros and Cons in all of them.  So I repeat from the disclaimer, "This is not a battle cry against the efforts.  I do not judge ministries."  It just worries me ok?  And I say me because I remember when I first got saved and how flippy floppy I was because I tried to substitute the world into my Christian walk.  (uh oh)  I remember diving hard into Christian rap because I was told to give up secular rap.  And I'm not knocking Christian rap here, because I will still listen to it even after I finish writing this blog.  But I'm pointing at the attitude I had.  It was a ,"ok, God, since I can't have what I'm used to, I guess I'll settle for this."  Its the attitude that I honestly have a problem with.  What message are we sending when we do this?  I thought we're supposed to be trying to get people out of the world, not rebirth them through it.  It was just like me when I trying to build love through lust.  They're two opposites, and I was trying to use one to get the other.  

Impossible.  

The married pornography is one of my favorite examples because it would be so easy for me to justify that.  "God, at least they're married."  World wrapped in Jesus wrapping paper.  "At least we're talking about God."  NO!! NOT AT LEAST!  At greatest we should be shouting about God.  He's provided the Savior, the escape out of the world.  And frankly, I just do not need to be involved with anything that could take me back to desiring what God saved me from.  Like the married pornography, yes, its more "pleasing to God" because the couple is married and there bed isn't defiled, but my eyes and heart are being defiled---- and all its doing to me is feeding that lust in me that the blood of Jesus freed me from.  Not destroyed with His Death-O-Ray, but freed me from.  Which means the chains and shackles are still available at anytime, waiting on me to submit to them and choose slavery again.

So I always have a point right?  This time I kind of don't.  

Because I'm not going to say "YOU SHOULD STOP DOING THIS!"  That's whats wrong with the world in the first place.  We're so used to hearing Christians telling us what not to do instead of introducing them to why we shouldn't.  Jesus did a good job of that, since He spoke with parables and made relatable messages.  He didn't come to condemn, and neither am I.  Just consider these thoughts.  Go to God about them, and again, if He tells you to ignore this then by all means, listen to God.  That's what I want you do.  Seek God about it, and let the rest of the verse take effect, "but be transformed by the renewing of your mind".  Don't even ask me what to do, because like I said earlier, we can argue, debate, and all those words that means "fight" about the 21st Century methods all day, and surely will be able to find Pros and Cons in all.  I attended a concert a few weekends ago when this hit me, and my friend (http://mrsware92510.blogspot.com/) and I felt the exact same "hit".  Maybe we've dug this hold to deep?  Maybe we've started a trend that'll be hard to just shut off right now.  But hey, we shouldn't give up hope.  Our mission is to minister the word of God to people.  So just be sure it stays in honor of Him and not in honor of our methods.