"Christianity And..."

Can I be perfectly honest? I'm struggling. And maybe not in the way that you think. There are certainly plenty of struggle-inducing situations going around, but mine isn't so much focused on the tangible issues of the virus and the surrounding counter measures. It's more the invisible conflict I see happening right beneath the surface that's brewing and bubbling and threatening to erupt into a huge volcanic event at any time. Do you feel it too? I've heard the term "spiritual warfare" thrown out more than a few times lately and so I thought I would take a stab at exploring it a bit further to help determine what's really going on.

In a blog post for The Gospel Coalition, the author describes three components of spiritual warfare that we should be cognizant of; 1) Satan, 2) the world, and 3) our own flesh.

"These three enemies have a particular relationship to one another in their warfare against us. The Devil, that serpent of old, is “the prince of this world.” As such, he governs the world system in an effort to hide the truth about God.

The world, under the sway of the evil one, is a system of thoughts, values, ideas, and actions that expresses real hostility toward and rejection of God and God’s people.

...the world attacks by conspiring with and beguiling the Christian’s flesh, the sinful desires and thoughts that remain in the Christian."

I wanted to list these here for reference because I wholeheartedly believe that spiritual warfare is real. It is as real as Satan and the forces of evil that exist in the heavenly realms. The ultimate goal of Satan in the life of every believer is to gradually turn our eyes away from God and increasingly onto ourselves, our struggles, our grievances, our annoyances, our lusts, our passions, our causes... you get the idea. What is more detrimental to the Christian walk than selfishness and pride? And no one does selfishness and pride quite like Satan.

With this in mind, I want to explore what I perceive to be a huge threat simmering in the flesh of many believers right now. It's the continual filling of our minds with more and more voices that are leading us to detrimental levels of discontentment deep in our souls. Many of these voices may be well meaning authors, speakers, and experts in their field, but taken in summary, they have the potential to cloud our minds from the simplicity of the gospel and create boogeymen that just aren't worth the mental exertion. So while certain levels of discontentment can be wholly attributed to an attack of Satan on our flesh, I am noticing that in other cases, we may be accidentally giving him a leg up to attack us in a fight of our own making.

Coupled with this discontentment (or maybe the real reason behind it?) is another dangerous trend I am struggling to understand. It's the decrease in believers attending in-person worship services when there are no medical reasons not to. I have a study bible that offers vital statistics and commentary throughout each book. At the beginning of Ephesians, the "Purpose" behind this particular letter of Paul's states: "To strengthen the believers in Ephesus in their Christian faith by explaining the nature and purpose of the church, the body of Christ." In the fourth chapter, under the heading of "Unity in the body of Christ," Paul writes these words:

"As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work."

The big themes I want us to notice here about the purpose of the church body are:

• unity through the bond of peace
• one body working towards maturity
• ability to decipher deceitful teaching and scheming
• the holding together of the body by every supporting ligament, and
• each part doing it's work

So, here's the deal. If what Paul says rings true with you as a believer, but you (barring any medical reason) have found yourself preferring to stay home on Sunday mornings as of late versus re-join in worship alongside your fellow members in the body of Christ, I can imagine how those other voices I mentioned may be slowly starting to creep in, potentially breeding all sorts of discontentment in your life. I can imagine you may be experiencing little to no "unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace" having voluntarily separated yourself from the other supporting ligaments within the body of Christ. I can understand how your particular brand of church work, based on the Spirit's gifting, may seem far off and unattainable having no one there to help you grow or to build you up.

Believers, we are developing some seriously bad habits! If there is no one keeping you from the unity, maturity, discernment, support and work inside the body of Christ but your own self, it’s little wonder why you may be under Satan's attack. In actuality, you might just be giving Satan a vacation day because you are doing all the work yourself! I'd like to put a big Danger Ahead sign in view of those choosing this path. We need the body of Christ!

At a time in our country when there are pastors in certain areas going to court over keeping their church doors open, I find it difficult to process that church has become an inconvenience to others. And the plain truth of the matter is that they are either inconvenienced because of time or inconvenienced because of having to wear a mask.

Oh Lord, forgive us! For the remainder of this post, I am going to be speaking primarily to believers who fall in the latter category of those refusing to re-join worship because of a mask requirement.

Consider this. I would be willing to bet that there are believers in China who would wear a full on hazmat suit every Sunday if it meant they could gather to worship without fear of imprisonment. I bet there are Christians in the middle east who would wear a suit of nails for an hour just to be able to freely proclaim the word of God without fear of death. I bet some in America, now living with their own legit experience of persecution having had their church doors slammed in their faces, would be grateful for that little face covering if it meant they could gather once again in peace.

As for the rest, I don't know if the excuse of "unpleasantness" will hold up in court when it's your day to give testimony. I don't think, "Church just didn't feel the same with a mask on." will suffice one day in the throne room. Make no mistake, plenty of you are trying that excuse on for size right now, so maybe you can let me know how it works out. I just don't like your odds.

Of course the masks are aggravating! But come on, y'all. People around the world are DYING to do what you have the opportunity to freely do. Literally dying. Enough already with the over-sensitivity to your feelings about masks!

Remember Abraham? He got over his feelings pretty quickly when he left everything he had ever known to move to a far off land he knew absolutely nothing about.

Remember Moses? He got over his feelings when God asked him to appear before Pharaoh demanding the freedom of his people.

Remember Esther? She got over her feelings when she decided to go speak to the king, uninvited, which could have resulted in her death.

Remember Mary? She got over her feelings about her pregnancy when she said, "I am the Lord's servant, may it be to me as you have said." (Luke 1:38)

Believers, we have a long line of spiritual giants to take our cues from who were tasked with monumental jobs and ultimately learned the secret of getting over their feelings about them! Nothing was going to hold them back from their spiritual missions. Nothing was going to hold them back from obedience. It was succeed, or die trying!

All we're being asked to do is wear a mask. Heaven help us.

Do you desire to have "the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace" with other believers? Do you desire to "become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ?" Well, if what's keeping you from obtaining it truly is as trivial as a face mask, ask yourself if that would have stopped Noah, Joseph, Samson, Deborah, Elijah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Mary, Martha, Peter or Paul? Good grief, if that had been all it took to stop the forward progress of the early church, we would all be in a world of hurt wouldn't we?

In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis explains what I like to refer to as "Causal Christianity." In this passage, Screwtape, a senior demon and uncle to Wormwood, is writing to inform Wormwood about a useful tool in turning Christians away from The Enemy, which in the case of demons is God.

"The real trouble about the set your patient is living in is that it is merely Christian. They all have individual interests, of course, but the bond remains mere Christianity. What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call ‘Christianity And’. You know—Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Psychical Research, Christianity and Vegetarianism, Christianity and Spelling Reform. If they must be Christians let them at least be Christians with a difference. Substitute for the faith itself some Fashion with a Christian colouring."

I think if C.S. were writing this today, he could have easily written in Christianity and the Mask Mandate along with his other examples. Have politics become a "Fashion with a Christian colouring" in your life? I'll give you a quick way to answer this. Are you voluntarily forgoing your right to freely worship within the body of Christ all the while clamoring on about how your individual rights are being striped away? I think you have created for yourself a shiny, new "Christianity And..." movement that is doing nothing for Paul's teaching above. Discernment may have escaped you and your "Causal Christianity" may have begun to supersede your actual Christianity. Be careful, discontentment weighs heavily here and will become an endless cycle of chasing the wind before you even realize you are doing it.

Oswald Chambers says it like this:

"The great enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ today is the idea of practical work that has no basis in the New Testament, but comes from the systems of the world. This work insists upon endless energy and activities, but no private life with God. The emphasis is put on the wrong thing.

In our Lord's life there was none of the pressure and the rushing of tremendous activity that we regard so highly today, and a disciple is to be like his Master."

Is there a rush of tremendous activity that you regard highly today? Possibly even higher than gathering for worship? If the constant fighting of the systems of the world has you using endless amounts of energy, but the thought of attending worship on Sunday morning somehow seems unattainable, your emphasis is wholly on the wrong thing. And worse yet, this emphasis of yours may have no basis in the New Testament, but come solely from the systems of the world! Believers, this is almost like "reverse spiritual warfare" in that while you think you are fighting a worthy cause for the sake of Christ, Satan himself is twisting it all up and actually using you as his pawn to sew further seeds of discontentment. Extreme caution is needed here along with a large amount of maturity in Christ.

If those two authors haven't convinced you that you may be barking up the wrong tree, I'll try one more:

"Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor."

1 Peter 2:13-17

There is just no misinterpretation of this verse. Submit yourselves to every human authority, be it the emperor, supreme authority, or governors, for the Lord's sake. It is plain as day. At the time of his writing, Peter would have been telling his fellow believers of their need to submit to one of the world's most notoriously evil tyrants, Emperor Nero. The commentary in my bible further explains it like this:

"Obviously he was not telling believers to compromise their consciences; as Peter had told the high priest years earlier, "We must obey God rather than men." But in most aspects of daily life, it was possible and desirable for Christians to live according to the law of the land.

If we are to be persecuted, it should be for obeying God, and not for breaking moral or civil laws."

If you are bound and determined to break civil law in your self-proclaimed Christian cause, how in the world are you actually doing the good that would silence the ignorant talk of foolish people? In reality, are you most likely doing what the next sentence says instead? Are you using your "freedom" as a cover-up for evil by not showing proper respect to everyone, loving the family of believers or honoring the emperor? It's a serious question that deserves serious examination in our hearts.

Furthermore, the mask mandate is not even close to a compromise of our conscience. Let's consider the Coptic Christians who were beheaded on the beach in Libya for refusing to recant their faith as our measuring stick for not compromising our consciences. Or maybe the doctors refusing to perform abortions. How about businesses closing their doors rather than offer healthcare with questionable requirements. THESE are examples of people not compromising their consciences for the Lord's sake. Mask wearing, on the other hand, is a nuisance and that's all. None, no not one, of our religious liberties are being compromised by our government when they ask us to wear one (read about the "strict scrutiny" standard here). Refusing to wear a silly piece of cloth by no means puts us in the same category as a martyr. If those early Christians could submit themselves to the civil law enforced by Emperor Nero, we can certainly submit ourselves to the civil law enforced by our local governments today... for the Lord's sake!

In conclusion, fighting a battle of ideals (religious, political, systemic, institutional, etc.) can be worthy if the fight itself doesn't replace your faith and further lead to growing discontentment in your soul. Don't lose the forest for the trees. Make no mistake, no matter what side of an argument we find ourselves on, all it takes is a quick Google search to locate all manner of scientists, doctors, specialists, etc. to back our particular play. We must learn to silence the superfluous voices and always remember at the end of the day, no matter what the world systems are throwing at us, the Great Commission has still been commissioned! If the time you spend in "Christian protest" over the ability to sidestep some civil mandate that actually doesn't violate any laws (read here) far outweighs the time you spend in Christian protest over lost souls, your priorities have taken a turn. Be mindful of what C.S. Lewis calls "Christianity And..." because Jesus needs absolutely no supplemental platform.