April 16, 2024

This is part one of presumably several posts. I want to set the scene here: There is something stirring deep in my soul, something I intend to sift through and clearly define what the Word says pertaining this issue.

There is no boundary so abrupt in the land of the living as the end of dry ground and the beginning of the sea. As a coastal Floridian, I have spent nearly four decades seeing this distinct boundary line on a daily basis. The sugary white sand that blankets the shoreline is a frail transition at best. If you stand on the shores but face north, thousands of miles of land will be stretched out ahead of you. Turn 180 degrees and your view is quite different - an emerald ocean that ends on the shores of a different continent. I've felt this same sense of finite change while standing on the not-so-sugary shores of the Atlantic and even on the natural stone banks of Lake Superior in upper Michigan. I am so accustomed to living on the coast that it becomes a directional beacon. There is a certain familiarity, dare I say a comfort, in always being near the water and instinctually knowing which direction is home. I was unware of this subconscious comfort until I travel to Oklahoma in my early 20s and realized I had no sense of direction because I did not know where the ocean was.

This striking contrast of land and sea became even more apparent when I laid eyes on the great northern Pacific and sunk my feet in its nearly-frozen black sand. Unlike the sugary beaches at home, the land often comes to a screeching halt with cliffs towering hundreds of feet above the roaring waters below. I'd flown to the Pacific Northwest before but in summer 2022 I drove cross country from Florida to western Oregon. Somehow the thousands of miles in my rearview mirror came to a sudden end when I reached the Pacific Ocean. I could go no further. The land ended and the sea began.

Consider the contrast of land and sea as a picture of the definitive truths in our spiritual lives. Scripture is emphatically clear: There is light and darkness, holy and unholy, new and old, life and death. The reality of light and holiness and newness and resurrection life are not merely characteristics of God as something to be admired. These things declare that He is God and we are not, yet they are the very things that He has made available to us and calls us to walk in by the power of His blood and indwelling Spirit. In these stark contrasts there is no gray area. And even if there was a gray area, why would we want to reside there? We should love what God loves and detests what He detests. We must wage war and plead the blood of Christ where the gray would beckon us to remain.  1 John 1 plainly states this truth, saying "God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him. If we say, "We have fellowship with Him," and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. If we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin" (vs 5-7). Proverbs 4:18-19 shows this contrast and how it should continually increase until we are fully before Jesus in His glorious light: "The way of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, which shines even brighter and brighter until the full light of day. But the way of the wicked is like total darkness. They have no idea what they are stumbling over". 

Colossians 1 also talks about the separation of light and darkness. This is one of my favorite chapters of scripture because of the detailed truth it declares about Jesus. It speaks clearly about who He is and what He has accomplished on our behalf, that is, what we have entered into because of Him: "We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him: bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints' inheritance in the light. He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son He loves. In Him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins" (vs 9-13, emphasis added).

Isaiah gives caution to the confusion or mixture of these two distinctly different things, saying "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter" (5:20). Although I know there is nothing new under the sun, and these patterns of sin and delusion have continued since the beginning, I see an unprecedented multiplication of sin and darkness in our time. The darkness is becoming darker by the day and even being called good. How are we as believers supposed to respond in this hour?

Ok, the gloves are coming off. Let's get real here: We are not called to simply respond to darkness. We are called to live in the light. We live in a culture where the masses, including the church, have a platform for statements, opinions or comebacks. In a sense the church in many ways has become reactive rather than proactive, and we only let the fullness of our light shine from under a basket when it's absolutely necessary. We must remember that the lives that we live we now live in Christ. This is a matter of our very lives, not exclusively our Facebook posts or political affiliation. We are called to be separate, holy and sanctified. I don't want to be a shade of white - that is, washed white as snow by the blood of Jesus only to see how much black I can mix in drop by drop and remain white-ish. My dingy white might fool the world or even my church but am I living as a pure and spotless Bride before my Bridegroom, lest I forget He is also my Judge? To the naked eye one drop of black may not turn me gray, but my soul should know its leaning. If it is contrary to the Word, it will tarnish me. If it is sin, it will stain me. If it is darkness, it will dim the light within me. These things have no part in me.

Let me be clear: I am not questioning the precious blood of the Lamb. His blood is able to fully and forever remove the stain of sin and its claim on my eternity - but I must remain washed in that redeeming blood. Did the writer of Hebrews not say that if we go on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth that there is no other sacrifice for us (10:26)? Sadly, in recent years the church has too often made a mockery of God's grace as a license to sin (or at a minimum, push the envelope), often times in a public arena. This flirtation with sin shows that the church is less inclined to view God's grace as the blessed overflow of His goodness toward us, a kind patience that has offered us His salvation and freedom from sin.

At the end of days when the Bride of Christ will be received unto Him, Revelation 19:7-8 tell us: "Let us be glad and rejoice, and let us give honor to Him. For the time has come for the wedding feast of the Lamb, and His bride has made herself ready. She was given clothing of fine linen, bright and pure. For the fine linen she wears is the righteous acts of the saints." Keep fleeing from evil, Bride of Christ, and do good according to Psalm 37:27.

I am grieved by the nearly daily reports of stains that are coming upon the Bride's gown. This is not the world flinging muck and mire at us from the pit. There is still a living hope that many in that pit can and will be delivered! These stains are from the Bride willingly drudging through the mud and wondering if her gown will stay white. There is a difference in walking through the troubles of this world in pursuit of Jesus and walking in this world with Jesus in our peripheral, all the while thinking we won't be in trouble. Beloved, if you put a pig in the mud, the mud doesn't get piggy.... Frankly speaking, what in the world are we doing?

We, largely the western church, have traded preaching for entertaining and the true power and works of the Holy Spirit for a God-bumps-on-goosebumps counterfeit. I am not against excellence or creativity, but when these things become idols and Jesus is a side-cart, we are in sinful error. We have detached our personal lives from our public platforms and think that what is resonating in our hearts, marriages and homes has no bearing on the fruit that we bear in the house of God. Last I checked God did not call us to assemble ourselves simply for a good time, yet church has somehow become the righteous alternative to the local watering hole. Gossip and slander are rampant, sexual sin and divorce is neck-and-neck with the world, and we've made light of our vices because of God's extravagant grace. I have wept and contended for the days of revival that I believe are coming to the church - that His Bride would truly be cleansed, made radiant for His return and found without compromise. It will be a revival of joy but make no mistake, there will first be a long night of weeping as we grieve what we have allowed and even cultivated in His house. I bless the church, I cry out for her repentance and ask for the gift of tears that we would be desperate for Jesus again.

So I ask us, church, myself included - when did we depart from being continually cleansed by the Blood and the Word and stewarding ourselves in the fear of the Lord? I refuse to be gray. I would no sooner call the land sea or the sea land. If I tried to drive a boat onto the shore I would surely destroy it or possibly myself, and likewise, my car would quickly sink into the sea if I foolishly considered it a highway.  So why are we confused about what is dark and light? God help us and forgive us. Hear me: There is no one particular pastor, region or denomination on the chopping block - we have all fallen short of the glory of God. I am not slamming the church; I am broken for her. I am sick over the church, grieved over her carelessness and saddened by her misrepresentation of Christ. I am a part of this church - the Body of Messiah - and in as much must daily ask the Lord to search me and purify me that I may walk worthy of His call.

The last-days church will be unashamedly sanctified... Not above, not better than, but fully in love with her Bridegroom and walking fully in that love. The Holy Spirit sanctifies us - not our works. But oh, that we would long for His sanctification! The world is increasingly on a sure path to hell and we, beloved, have been given the great privilege and call to declare the hope and salvation of Jesus. We mustn't be hypocrites in this hour. Hypocrites are not equipped unto the harvest, and the harvest is ripe.