DON'T KILL THE MJESSENGER


DON’T KILL THE MESSENGER

                Some time back I shared a message by Paul Begley on Face Book. Someone responded that they were offended by him and couldn’t even look at him or stand what he was saying.

                To this I would respond, not knowing the person in the slightest, that perhaps they are living in the flesh and judging by the flesh and so they cannot see beyond Paul’s rough cut personality to the work of the Spirit in and through His life.

                Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks upon the heart. And so for some, they will not listen to anyone but the smooth talker with his three piece suit and his cultured demeanor and his intellectual prowess. In many cases people can listen to such a person and still keep their pride and their spiritless pretenses intact. There has been nothing of the Holy Spirit to bring them to repentance, but only the tickling of the intellect.

                Furthermore then never stop to consider that throughout the entire Bible God almost always chose rough cut, one-of-a-kind men and women to be His prophets. They came storming out of the wilderness, wild-eyed and hairy and dressed in camel’s hair to call a nation to repentance for the day of the Lord was at hand and judgment was on the way.

                Even in the choosing of His disciples, Jesus didn’t go to the Sanhedrin or even to the Synagogue, or to the school of the Scribes and Pharisees. Instead He went to the shores of Galilee to find rough cut fishermen and such….so much easier to train them than to un-train the intellectuals.

                We see in the story of the woman caught in adultery, that Jesus was an aspiring young prophet who had a perfect chance to gain the favor of the learned crowd and the religious upper crust of Jerusalem. Instead He wrote their sins in the dust and they left one by one from the oldest to the youngest and then He looked upon the women, naked and ashamed and He said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” What kind of God do we serve?

                The truth is Jesus saw more potential in her than He did in all of the religious leaders. In their pride and their stuffiness they were un-useable by the Spirit of God, but in the woman’s brokenness Jesus saw the springing forth of a new life. She became a follower of Jesus and her story has touched millions with a side of the Gospel that the religious types still fail to see.

                In this story of the woman caught in adultery and in the story of the prodigal son, we see something about God that jolts our senses. God is not what we have made Him out to be. And even though He absolutely does not condone or excuse sin, He loves the sinner with a passion that few can explain. He came to seek and to save the lost… not to build a religion. The only religion that Jesus recognizes is a broken heart and a contrite spirit. He sees the poor, moved by compassion giving of the little that they have, He sees those who feed the widows and orphans. Much of what we call “the Church” today isn’t even of God’s design. It is built upon the intellect of the soul, rather than the living water of the Spirit.

                If we read Hebrews 11 we see there a list of the people whom God used through time. They were of the faith hall of fame and yet they were hated in their own time. They were stoned, imprisoned, sawn in two, hated, despised and ignored. Read it friends… read it.

                “They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. And all these having gained approval through their faith did not receive what was promised because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they should not be made perfect. Heb. 11:37-40.

                So, next time you choose the slick talking TV preacher who pulls up in his limousine and flies off in his jet, remember that God has a different set of values than we do… and chances are, such people are not even telling you the truth.

                God is looking for and using the broken vessels through which His living water can flow. Selah.

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