We had some friends who let their girl keep a pet rat. Now I confess to never being partial to rats. I especially hate their tails! If a rodent must be kept I’d prefer a cute pudgy hamster with no tail but that is just me. The girl would take her rat out, hold it and it would scurry around, up her arm, around her neck and stop, peering out from under a curtain of long hair. One problem about her pet rat was that it might go potty. Just a little dampness or a small little turd. Hardly anything to speak of. Oh, and her last pet rat did bite a little. I remember going to their house to pick something up and they were all gone so we let ourselves in and my daughter stopped at the cage to admire the pet rat. I cautioned her that, “It bites.” and continued down the hall. Within a few seconds I heard a yelp of dismay. “It bit me!”
The problem with the rat, even though it’s owner thought it was tremendously cute and lovable was that, while it may have been cute (this is in the eye of the beholder only) it was not domesticated. While it’s owner thought of it's potty habits as a minor inconvenience many would consider it a break point for keeping the creature and certainly for allowing it away from it’s cedar shaving floored cage. In short the rat was not tamed and never would be.
That rat is a lot like me before God got hold of me. I mean REALLY got hold of me. You see I was pretty well tamed but I was best kept in with my cedar shavings to avoid embarrassing habits. My sins were only slightly under control and only by the flesh. Not by the Spirit. The fleshy man must be restrained by physical boundaries, by hard laws. This is because spiritual restraint is only possible in the man who is actually spiritually alive. I was not.
I am very afraid that today, in our churches, we have many many men like me. Men, who are a part of the social aspect of the church but not really a member of the body of Christ. And it is not always their fault. They have been deceived by an easy believism that has become part of the church culture. Do the Romans road, say the magic prayer and >poof!< You’re a Christian! The only trouble with this is that we’ve ended up with churches full of unsaved men who must be kept in with the cedar shavings. They are not new creatures in Christ. I know because I was among them.
There was a time when we had such a strong emphasis on evangelism that we dumbed it down to a series of events that a person would participate in and then we considered them “saved”. The trouble was that our whole approach was messed up and really unBiblical. It was operated as if God had little part except to be available to us when our newest convert was ready to say the prayer. God did not honor this. As a result many of those who “prayed the prayer” continued to look for something more real than what they had been led into. So we saw, and still see today, a great surge into the charismatic movement as these folks became acquainted with their own dearth and went looking for an experience. They found it in the hyped emotionalism of the seeker friendly, pew hopping, rock and roll playing, worship team leading, action packed services of our charismatic friends. Everyone stirring up one another not to good works but to a emotional high that we blamed on the Holy Spirit. Everything became a manifestation of the Spirit. Soon we had the barking revival and “holy laughter”. Services where folks were given bags to vomit up the evil spirits were not uncommon and being “slain in the spirit” became a high light experience.
The trouble with all of this is that, just like the other experience of formula conversion, God was completely left out. Man was happily holding the reins. Still in charge, with leadership dealing with the myriad problems an owner has when they accumulate more pet rats. So the church, in response to these “converts” ordered more cedar shavings.
I have seen this happen. I was one of the pet rats that they got more shavings for. It was only when I was backed into a corner and after years and years of knowing that I was not a new creature in Christ but only a fairly well domesticated pet rat, that I finally came to a place where I was ready to listen to God and find out what He required of me. We have a mentality that asks, “What can God do for me?” And as the church has drifted from Him and His plan we now hear folks asking what can the church provide for me? The concept illustrated by J.F. Kennedy’s famous quote, "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country" is completely foreign to these church attenders. They do not come to serve but to be served and the seeker friendly church is ready to accommodate them. The greater shame is how God is incorporated into the show. The names of God are merely nouns in the mantra used in the worship “celebration” as they work the crowd into a fevered war path pitch. (Can you hear the drums?) Then the Holy Spirit is credited for the results when it is actually just emotionalism. No lives are changed at all. More shavings please!
I said I was nicely domesticated but that is not true. I was a scandal of hypocrisy and pride. Everyone fell under my wrath of unrighteous anger and scorn. My family suffered tremendously under my tyrannical leadership and it was only by God’s great abundance of grace that anyone ever made it out alive. Like a friend of mine said, “I was wicked with a bag of chips.” In other words I was not just wicked but wicked with extra. I was super-sized sinful. But from the outside and when in my cage I was mistaken as cute. I was not. It was when I came to know just how wicked I was, how completely and utterly despicable I was that my Heavenly Father could work in me. How wretched I was and am yet how blessed I am to have been touched by the Master’s hand. Because this rat was transformed!
When I heard my Father it changed my life! The scripture admonishes us to “Be still and know that I am God.” It was in the stillness of my frantic heart so weighed down with my awful sin, that God spoke in His quiet voice and He touched me! Oh He touched me and OH! the joy that floods my soul. Something happened and now I know! He touched me and made me whole. You see it is more than just a song in my heart it was true. I was shackled by a heavy burden. I was under a load of guilt and shame, then the hand of Jesus touched me and now I am (REALLY! OH WHAT JOY!!) no longer the same.
What the charismatic movement did not do for me, what it was unable to do for me, what legalism and the law could not do for me, what my flesh could so utterly NOT do for me God did. And today I am indeed a new creature not of any effort of my own but because I was finally able to throw myself on a God who was waiting for me. Every thing I could not He could and when, in desperation I came to Him, He did what every thing I had tried before could not do.
What can I say? Oh fellow sinner He is waiting for you. Are you tired of the experiences that you are acquainted with? Are they coming up empty? Then Praise Him! You’re getting close to where you can hear from the real God who is longing to touch you. Lay aside all you’ve learned and experienced. Turn yourself off and wait on Him. Listen for Him. He will talk to you! He will meet you in the place where He intends. He will change you, I promise it is true because He touched me. He changed me and He most certainly will change you!
He has plans for you! He has your welfare in mind, He will not harm you, He wants to give you a future and a hope! Jeremiah 29.11
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