Monday, May 7, 2007

Intimacy and Mission (part 2)

The following is a continuing of the thought from my last post and also the concluding part of my longer article on this topic. You can download the entire article at my website listed in the links to the left.

It’s fairly common these days to hear the Western Church compared to the Church in Laodicea (Revelation 3:14-22). There we read of a lukewarm church whose works are neither hot nor cold. It is a church which is deceived into thinking it’s healthy because of external appearances while it is in fact living in abject spiritual poverty. I personally don’t doubt that there are many parallels between the contemporary Western church and the Laodicean church: materialism, consumerism, self-centeredness, lack of mission, etc., all jump out as we read this passage. But I have yet to hear anyone suggest the solution that Jesus suggests for the Laodiceans’ desperate condition. Usually when someone addresses the problems of the Western Church they speak of a return to being missional or a change in structure or something similar. The general thought seems to be that that if we can just change the behavior of Western believers and get them to try harder then the Church will become healthy.

There are two problems with this solution: First, it’s not the solution Jesus offers; second, because of reason number one, it won’t work!

So what solution does Jesus extend to the Laodicean believers? In a phrase: a return to intimacy. After describing the Laodicean problem in verses 15-17, Jesus counsels His people to come to Him to get true riches, clothing and healing (v. 18 His words here echo Isaiah 55:1-3), to return to Him in response to His loving rebuke (19), and to open the doors of their hearts in a return to intimate fellowship with Him (20). Interestingly, return to intimacy with Him is also the solution Jesus gives to the very “missional” and active Church in Ephesus (3:1-7)! This certifies that a mere return to mission won’t solve our problem!

It is quite plain, I trust, why we need to apply Jesus’ solution to His broken Western Church. A mere change of behavior or even a change of format (wineskin) will not cure our desperately bankrupt condition. Without a return to experienced, continuing intimacy with God, the best we can hope for is a new wineskin full of striving, discontented Christians living in uncomfortably close community with one another, trying unsuccessfully to fulfill a mission that has always required intimacy with God at its very core.

Does anyone else out there hear Jesus’ invitation? “Here I am! I stand at the door of your heart knocking, waiting for entrance into the deepest parts of your life. If you will just open the door, I will come in and we will share the deepest and richest of foods together in the most intimate of settings!” (Revelation 3:20 TW paraphrase)

Drawing closer...

Tom, the least of Abba's children

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amen, brother.

Anonymous said...

This is so good.