Our systems are perfectly designed and implemented to get us where we are. We can’t blame others or bad luck. We built our systems and then our systems built us.
If we are only one play short of total victory, maybe small incremental and minor adjustments would get the job done. Not gaining ground year after year isn’t a demand for a simple tweeking, it is a shout for a total overhaul.
In talking about those who have not yet heard the Good News and God’s call upon our lives to reach the regions beyond, I became aware of many folks willing and even eager to make minor adjustments to their lives for the cause. This feels like just enough activity to sooth the conscience and reduce the volume of the Spirit’s voice.
What if the only thing that will get the job done is deep change? Moving from;
- Tithing to giving away everything?
- Giving away an hour or two each week in ministry to giving all day, every day for the rest of your life?
- Selling your skills for a paycheck to investing your skills so others benefit?
Maybe the commonly held benchmarks for success in the American Christian life are more determined by the system than by the Person, Jesus Christ.
Maybe “blessed are the poor” really means that the poor are blessed?
Maybe “My kingdom is not of this world” really means that God’s kingdom isn’t of this world?
Maybe “I am crucified with Christ” is an invitation to live dead?
Maybe “Go into all the world” really means that we should go?
Often the system honors and blesses the not the poor, but the wealthy; not those who live for the heavenly kingdom, but those who are building their own kingdoms; not those crucified with Christ, but those who seem fully alive in the natural; and not those who go, but those who stay.
The system we built now builds us.
Deep change anyone?