Seeking God is kind of silly, more then kind of silly, it is ridiculous ... no wait, seeking God is outrageously stupid: there, I think I nailed the butterfly wing concept down with push-ins.
If I want to find Waldo, I have to look for him amid a mass of stories, tiny vignettes told on each page, with come alive characters that seem to be enjoying themselves solo, or interactively, as cartoon creatures. Is this what people are doing when they attend a seekers church? Are attendees looking for God in sugar coated pretend pastoral wagging tongues that use up words without tapping into meaning; in songs that sweetly sing of Jesus as a best friend, rather than the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world via his sacrifice on the cross; on projection screens with lyrics and images that move a person to sentimentality minus a striking of conscience; and in the actors that crowd the stage as a crew to perform a skit they practiced all week, that more often then not, has nothing whatsoever to do with sin and salvation?
What about the concept of me not finding God, but God finding me? If I had coffee in my mouth just now, I would have sputtered it out onto the keyboard and screen in front of me. God made you and I, and we know not how, but here you are, reading, and here I am (was) typing, and holy God in heaven, how insane is it to think that God is searching for us, as though each of us is a version of Waldo in a massive conglomeration of collected people, places, and things. The thought makes me giggle, because that's just silly, that's just ridiculous, that's just stupid, and dumb too!
I attended a seekers church for many years. I was already saved, which is the terminology we Christians use to indicate we have been redeemed by the blood of Christ after acknowledging our sin, repenting, and giving God all the credit and glory (another Christian term), for his mercy, forgiveness, and saving grace gift of new life in Jesus Christ as Lord. There was nothing I could do or say to have God save me from myself. I wasn't seeking him, because I knew he existed, undeniably so. I wasn't lost, and then found either; while I was wandering and wondering how I could live with myself, and with the guilt and shame of all the things I thought, and all the things I had done, that were offensive to God, he had me weeping at the age of twenty-two in gratitude, when I realized I didn't have to be perfectly well behaved, performing like a well trained monkey (more on that in a bit), I was required to acknowledge HIM, as God Almighty. There was a quickening in my spirit, a coming alive to knowing God, and the freedom from the burden of conscience was astounding, and still is, each time I pray for and receive, strength from my God to sin no more.
I had someone say to me, Linda, you are good, but you aren't Jesus - you will forgive me for not giving you a back story for this statement; I cannot recall what came before or after this one line that has marked my memory all these years. This rebuke came at me like a dagger to my heart, spoken by one of the onstage performers at the seekers church. I have mulled over this many a time, and recently I revisited the thought and realized: I didn't want to be Jesus, I just didn't want to be me. Jesus is perfect, holy, sinless and, pristine! I was mucky and mired and messy and embarrassed of myself, constantly admonishing me with that finger in your face verbalized message, You shouldn't have said that; You shouldn't have done that; Seriously, again? When will you learn? Just speak less, behave appropriately, and we won't have to have another one of these conversations. If I behaved, like a good and well trained monkey, I wouldn't have to feel so badly, about being bad. Good God in heaven, works based doctrine had tricked me into believing that if I tried hard enough, I could be as good as Jesus. I have to laugh at this now in retrospect, because that is a meat hook I never want to be on again, and I am so joyful at having been taken off that hanger.
My point is this: you have a conscience, we all do. When we go against the will of God, the conscience screams, Hey you, I saw that, I heard what you said, that isn't right. That is God's way of saying, I am right here, speaking to you. We don't have to go looking, he is present. In the seekers church, there is a lie told without words, that you can find God in the services they provide, as though your attendance there, will draw you closer to your Creator. They tell you, sing to you, play act for you, about a Waldo God that can be found, and you get to indulge the idea that it is up to you to have a relationship with him, using your freedom of choice to attend church, and consider whether or not you want him in your life. A true Christian does not want God in their life, they know he is not only there, but that he is at the helm, steering the ship toward heaven, and away from shipwreck.
Many a Christian is now churchless. Most churches are apostate, and they are so worldly that it is impossible to tell them apart from the synagogues of Satan. They do not honour and obey God, as the God of The Bible, but playact as they perform for the crowds; for the people that think they can toy with the idea of God being real, not all powerful, but actually existing.
God, is not Waldo. God will not be mocked. God is listening, he is watching, and he is mercifully measuring time for us to snap out of the stupor, fall on our knees, and worship him as Sovereign.
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