Pursue Truth?

Jesus Christ founded His universal church, available to all, offering a personal relationship with God. His church is based on relationship, not the rituals, rites, and regulations of religion. But many of the first Christians, coming out of the legalistic law of Moses, wanted to legalize Christ’s teachings, and almost 2,000 years later some who assume they are Jesus’ disciples continue marching to the drumbeat of legalism.

Some of the pagans and Greeks who heard of the newly formed Christian church wanted to turn it into a philosophy, and their efforts continue to this day.

The Romans determined to institutionalize the church, and today a party spirit of “we’re right and your wrong!” pervades Christendom with competing cries of exclusive truth claims echoing across the Christian world.

But one of the greatest insults and perversions of the body of Christ is less than 300 years old. When the gospel came to America, it met the forces of capitalism and free enterprise. Many citizens of these United States have done their best to turn the gospel of Jesus Christ into a business.

Today, in twenty-first century America, God is in the process of being repackaged and reinvented. We Americans don’t have time for theology, doctrine, expository preaching, or Bible study because our attention span is limited to snappy 30-second television commercials filled with special effects. We are used to brief television programs that present solutions for anything from crime and obesity to financial problems and sexual dysfunctions. We want our God presented, explained, and “served” to us in practical, easy to understand, bite-sized portions.

Courtesy of the American entrepreneurial spirit, God is now available in microwave version. We don’t need to wait for one hour while our spiritual food is prepared in the oven. Now it is 60 seconds in the microwave, and we have God where we want Him. Twenty-first century America has morphed God into bumper sticker messages and feeling based multi-sensory experiences.

Pursue truth? We Americans don’t want to critically examine issues; we want someone to prepackage and shrink wrap our thinking for us, so that there is little mental chewing involved in digesting the final product. What zeal we have for right and wrong often fades as complexities demand intellectual attention, and we find ourselves shifting our allegiance to whatever is quick and easy.

Many would rather read Christian fiction and Christian fantasy than Christian teaching from the Bible. Over a number of years now, one of the germinative contributions to Christian fiction literature from the blockbuster “Left Behind” series has been the merging of Christian fact and fiction. Many readers are either unable to discern the difference or simply don’t care. Is it any wonder that the Book of Revelation has come to be warped and twisted into a disaster movie?

Pursue truth? In our culture of fast spiritual food, many critically important themes of the Book of Revelation have been diminished and devalued in a rush to over-literalize its message and force political overtones and personalities into the text. Topics of eternal significance are continuously stressed in the Book of Revelation, such as God’s grace and God’s judgment against religious and political oppression and evil. The triumphal rule of Jesus and His eventual victory over all religious imposters, who create a Babylon of religious confusion in our world, are pushed aside by attempts to impose human time concepts on this timeless message.

Pursue truth? We want Jesus to come now, in our generation! And there are plenty of prophecy teachers who are quick to realize a financial profit by giving people what the want. As a result, a true Christ-centered focus is at best blurred and, beyond that, sometimes lost in the fog and smoke of sensational, lurid distortions of its message.

Pursue truth? Entertain me and make me feel good. If the truth happens to accompany feel-good entertainment, that’s great. If not, it may be too much trouble for us to pursue truth from the friendly confines of our couch or recliner. Given our cultural reality, the Book of Revelation is not an easy read, and as a result, it is often distorted and “dumbed down.”

Pursue truth? Now we have the “DaVinci Code” – a fictionalized version of the life of Jesus in the books of the Gospel. First Revelation distorted, and now Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Business rears its ugly head again and, presto, the writer, publisher, movie producer, and Tom Hanks make lots of money.

Yes, when the gospel came to America, it surely did meet the forces of free enterprise and capitalism. And many Christians and non-Christians have capitalized on it.

I don’t care how our culture has left you short on time. Prioritize what is really important in the big picture – your spiritual life and your personal relationship with your Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ.

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