Christian Living

---

Are you insane?

Do you believe a guy who lived 2000 years ago is still alive? Not only is he still alive, but he died, was dead for 3 days, and then got up saw a whole bunch of his friends before leaving on a cloud to spend some time in Heaven. Do You also believe that one day he is coming back to pick a fight with a former angel who got kicked out of Heaven for trying to overthrow the government. Do you believe in Jesus? His disciples did.

Picture this, these guys are sitting in a house, hanging out, wondering what's going to happen next. Suddenly a hurricane force wind blows through the place. They look around and all their heads are on fire. Then they start jabbering. Each of them is just spewing forth words that don't seem to mean anything, except to all the people outside. The people outside are all hearing their own native language, glorifying God. Then the guy who ran away from Jesus when he was on the cross, Peter, starts to talk. What does he say first? "Listen, guys, despite what your thinking, we haven't been drinking." We haven't been drinking. We haven't been drinking? What is going on here? Something so strange happens that the people are thinking the disciples are drunk. They must be. That's the only way to explain it. Either they are drunk or crazy.

Acts 5:40-41. Peter and the other apostles are told by a counsel of very intelligent men to stop talking about Jesus. They don't. They keep on talking and what happens? They get a beating. I'm mean a serious beating, the kind of thing modern society would define as cruel and unusual. Then what do they do? They leave rejoicing that they got a beating and they keep up their preaching.

Something must be wrong with these guys. They see fire on each other's heads. They think that getting beat is a good thing. They keep telling this crazy story about a guy who was God's son, who died without ever doing anything wrong, and who wants everyone to live with him and his dad forever. It's obvious that they were crazy.

The question is: Are we crazy? Are we this excited about God? Do we seem this different? Should we?

It seems the problem is: We aren't crazy. Our neighbors don't notice anything different about us. We don't stick out like a sore thumb. Acts is full of people who stick out. People who sold everything they owned so they could hang out and talk about God. Men who were so different that people would lay the sick and dying in their path so their shadow might fall on them.

Acts isn't the only place you can find people this insane. If you really want to see some crazies, go to Africa or South America. You could go to the Caribbean, China, Korea, and the south Pacific Islands. These places are filled with people who have gone insane for Jesus, and it shows. There are meetings in Africa with millions of people attending and million of people accepting Jesus. The underground church in China is millions strong, church systems in Brazil have several million members. Millions That's a one with six zeroes. They each believe in the same God without all the selfish bickering. They don't worry about the church name; they worry about the person next to them in the market. They don't care to live a "normal" life.

Why Africa, China and South America? I have a theory, I call it: "The Sanitization of Christianity." We make our "religion" sane. We don't need a God who moves, we want one that sits there like a good little statue. We've become so independent that we make God fit us, we don't need to fit him. We have no oppressors, no uncontrolled disease; we have convenient corner drug stores and friendly food stamp accepting grocery stores. It becomes easy for us to think that we can do everything ourselves. We put God on a shelf and take care of our own lives. Our church services are open and generally accepted, even the charismatic movement has gained quit a bit of acceptance. There's no worry that you might be tortured for your beliefs. It's a comfortable, sane existence.

And that's where we lack. Our sanity holds the Holy Spirit at bay. With no need for the fantastic, we don't ask. Mt 21:22 "and all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." (KJV) Whatsoever is not a word that generally finds it's way into our daily speech. Think about it though, whatsoever, what does that mean? It means anything, everything, it means that if you can think of it you can get it. Within reason of course, you have to ask for things that Jesus would ask for. Sound too confining; I don't think so. This is a guy who walked on water, made wine from water, fed thousands with a couple slices of Wonderbread and a can of sardines. He spoke with dead guys while his buddies watched and healed anyone who wanted to be. Still too confining, how about always having the right thing to say at the right time. Weather someone needs you to care or is accusing you of something. Unconfined yet? Okay, how about always knowing your purpose and following God with the complete assurance that whatever you needed would be supplied.

(I did say "needed", not "wanted", so I guess it is a little confining, but it's better than the alternative: a life of continuous freefall with no meaning and never knowing security. You have to admit though that there's a lot of freedom in the confinement.)

People all over the world know these truths. You need confinement to experience freedom. You need it to believe the unbelievable. You need to stand knowing that even though you can't see Him, the Holy Spirit is always with you. You need to be what society would call crazy to experience the true magnitude of the situation. Example: You have to believe that God, The God, the being who created a universe that never ends, with billions, yes billions, of galaxies and stars wants to talk to you. Do you see the insanity in this? We can't even really understand what infinite means, our brains don't get it, and we have to think about a God as big as eternity. Then we have to think that someone that big cares about our tiny, tiny lives. How? How do we do it? Faith. Faith could be described as believing in something that others might think is crazy.

So back to our question: Are we crazy? Do we have this thing called Faith. We should each ask ourselves this: Are we full of faith? In Acts 6 Stephen was; miracles and wonders followed him. It got him in some trouble, yes, but he didn't mind, he was crazy for Jesus, remember? How about in Acts 11 our friend Barnabas was full of faith and a great multitude was added to the Lord. There are many stories in both the New and Old Testaments of great faith. Whenever it shows up amazing things always follow.

Faith is the crux of our insanity. It's the hinge that has to fold in our minds to take us from straight forward thinking into believing in things we can't touch or see. When we believe, not because we've seen but because we accept what's unacceptable to our mind, that's faith. It's Crazy. That's when things start happening.

So do you want to be full of faith? Can you accept the fact that you will be seen as crazy? Most of us don't and can't seem to accept these things. That's why we like the Sanitized Christian Faith. We get heaven, but we don't have to be any different than our neighbors. We can go to work, come home and never think about anything spiritual during the week. We can do that because we have our normal, non-crazy, Sunday service. We have our normal acquaintances sitting next to us. We have everything that our co-workers will accept as normal on Monday. We don't talk about Jesus, because religion is too volatile a subject. We don't have to talk to God because we know he's there and we're here and everything is just, peachy.

We don't have to be crazy.

We don't want to be crazy. We want to fit in. We want acceptance.
We need to be liked. And we justify it by saying that that's how we get people to church. We're pleasant people so they want to come with us. Sorry, that's not how it works. They need to see something different, something amazing, something...Jesus. We don't show Jesus by being nice. Yes he is a nice guy, but he is more than that and we know it. He is "crazy in love" with his father. He is so in love with Him that he was willing to die for what God loved: Us. Do we show that crazy love in our daily walk? Without it we might get people to church, but we probably won't get them to Jesus. That's what He wants. He wants us to bring people to Him.

The best part is, they want to come to Jesus, because deep down God has a need for this insanity hard wired into us. He gave us a desire to be crazy for him. So it should be easy to bring them, just go crazy for Him and they'll notice, but the insanity gets channeled into everything but God. Do you know someone who acts like a madman when he watches sports? How about a woman who could shop all day long? Look around, everyone (esp. "Christians") is going mad for everything under the sun, from football to chocolate, alcohol to Aerosmith, and everything in between. Why is it that these things are so accepted but true Christianity isn't? Well, you can see the NY Jets and a Hershey's Kiss; you can see the results and feel the effects. Christianity is based on not seeing and still believing. (You might not see it but, you do feel the effects) American's don't like that. We like our pre-packed, T.V. guided lifestyles. Everything scheduled and nothing changing. How mundane of us. Could we be any less spiritual? I just don't know. We are so normal, so sane, that it's boring.

We are a boring, "sanitized" society. We live out "Christian" lives without event. Boring, boring, boring. We do the same things even though we think we don't. Look at your life; is it sane, is something missing? I think it is. It seems it might be time for a change.

So, is it? Is it time? Time to get crazy? Let's go insane for Jesus. Let's bring the world to him. We can sanitize our faith or we can Christianize our society. What will it be? Will you paint your face for Sunday's Game or Sunday's Service? Are you going to taste the sweet flavor of chocolate or Jesus? Eat the bread of life or Subway? Are we going to get crazy for God or continue letting the world go crazy around us. It's in our hands. It's up to us to change ourselves so we can change the world. When we accept the insanity of our Christianity, that's when things will start happening for us. If you've every wanted more, this is where more starts. God blesses those who will go full out for Him.







The Insanity of Christianity

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE