TRADITION

TRADITION

            When I speak as I often do against tradition and or doctrine oriented lives, it is not as you would suppose it to be. Tradition is good if it is a good tradition.

            My son Zach, seeing the abuses and phoniness that is inherent in much of modern Christianity, joined an Eastern Orthodox congregation. Their traditions and teaching have remained unchanged over the past 16 or 17 hundred years so that what they practice now is exactly what they practiced in the early centuries of Christianity. They maintain a strict regimen of times of fasting and prayer and various observances and I find it rather refreshing to hear their deep insights that have endured the test of time. For those who are observant these traditions are just as vital and alive with meaning as they were many centuries ago.

            The Eastern Orthodox people are no strangers to persecution for the Papacy has killed millions of their kind, in Russia and Greece and in every other country where they sought refuge from tyranny and oppression. The Papacy also killed about 60 million Messianic Jews as well, for indeed the early church was made up of Messianic Jews and when they refused to go along with the traditions of pagan Christianity they were burned at the stake.

            So I am not talking about good traditions that have endured the test of time and I am not critical of solid biblical doctrine in which the Bible has not been abused in order to say what men want it to say.

            The kind of tradition I am talking about is whatever tradition makes us complacent… that keeps us from searching… seeking… being transformed.

            When we settle back into a tradition and decide that we have become as much like Jesus Christ as we need to be so that we are now in a coasting pattern to heaven, we are following a bad tradition. When we are satisfied that our truth is the right truth and there is no need to overturn the rocks of tradition in order to discover new light… that is a bad tradition. If we have decided that we know it all and that we do not need to learn anything more from god’s word… that is a bad tradition.

            The church at Laodicea is described as having become lukewarm, having lost their first love. (Just as surely as the Ephesians had) and Jesus wanted to spit them out of His mouth like 3 day old porridge because they say, “I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing, and yet you do not know that you are miserable and poor and blind and naked.” Rev. 3:17

            The church at Laodicea was counselled to buy gold tried in the fire. Gold tried in the fire represents love that has been put to the test. It is not an armchair love, or the kind of love that we talk about in every Sunday school class, but never actually live. Gold tried in the fire is made up of that kind of love that gets its hands dirty, that washes people’s feet, that forgives, that maintains faith against all odds. That blesses rather than cursing.

            Love is not something we generate with our own works, for love in all of its aspects is a fruit of the Spirit…and unless our love comes from the Spirit, it comes attached to selfish motives… it is self-serving love… it wants a reward for every good thing it does… it wants recognition… it wants position… it craves notoriety.

            If our love is flesh-generated, then it is not the kind of love that will get us into the kingdom. We simply must have God’s love or we are miserable and blind and poor and naked.

            So if our traditions cause us to sit back and watch the world go by, thumbing our nose at everyone that doesn’t believe exactly the way we do… judging sinners… watching them go to hell with a strange and morbid sense of satisfaction… we are not sharing God’s love… for God so loved the world that He gave… He gave everything… He abandoned His own throne to come into our world and to pay the price for our sins. We should never let those words become common place. We should never allow them to become tradition…at least not the kind of tradition that lulls us into inaction and complacency.

            “Without faith it is impossible to please God, for those that come to Him must believe that He is and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6

            Diligently seeking Him is not a one- time trip to the altar. We are turning over rocks… seeking answers to unanswered questions…pursuing a knowledge of God that is deep and personal and living and vibrant. It changes who we are on the inside, but it also manifests itself in love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control on the outside. We are all of those things to the people around us.

            If we are actually living by the Holy Spirit then we don’t have the luxury of being in a bad mood… biting people’s heads off…getting impatient… throwing our weight around. True Spirit empowered love will make us more and more like Jesus and less and less dependent upon circumstances.

            Is our love so flimsy that it evaporates the moment someone cuts in line, says something mean, or treats us unfairly? Do our traditions allow for the occasional road rage… the well- meaning gossip…the judging of others?

            Like I said, if our traditions allow us to become complacent… satisfied… settled in our present state… disinterested in God’s agenda for these last days… then that is bad tradition.

            When we say that we don’t need to understand Bible prophecy because we are not going to be here… that is a bad tradition. Prophecy was given to us by Jesus Himself. The book of Revelation is a revelation of Jesus Christ. It is a book describing Jesus’ transitioning role from our High Priest to our coming King of kings and Lord of Lords. It gives us all of the principals involved in the final conflagration… the final desperate battle between Christ and His people and Satan and His people. God’s people have needed this information in every generation. Time has always been short due to our own lifespans. Understanding God’s ways is always urgent and timely simply because we don’t know if we have tomorrow.

            Bible prophecy is designed to perpetually steer us away from complacency and when we abandon it, we become complacent… we become backward in our thinking. We just sit there in church and love on Jesus while the whole world goes to hell… we have lost our vision… our sense of mission… our drive to save others. As long as we are in the life boat… who cares? Hmmm.

            Bible prophecy is not about charts and graphs… it is about your own soul and where it stands in earth’s ongoing and final issues. There is an old proverb that says that only dead fish go down stream. We are either floating along with earth’s hell- bound current or we are pushing by faith into the Kingdom of God and doing battle against principalities and power… casting down imaginations and taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. 2Cor. 10:3-5

            Are we pushing hard against the tide? Are we seeking after Him? Are we pursuing righteousness? Are we learning how to bear the fruit of the Spirit or are we just talking about it? If, for instance, joy is produced in us by Someone other than ourselves, namely the Holy Spirit, then it is not dependent upon how things are going, or how we are being treated. Joy is an eternal well-spring. And yet our tradition allows us to be glum and to say,” I am just in a bad mood.” No, that is the flesh talking, not the Spirit of God.

            God has only two modes; unfailing love and righteous wrath. Both are borne out of love. God’s wrath is kindled against sin and sinners because of what it does to His children. So His righteous wrath is someday going to have to rise up and destroy those that have destroyed the earth and wreaked havoc upon His faithful ones. But that too is love. Justice and judgment are acts of unfailing love… and keeping His promises and fulfilling His prophecies. These are also acts of love.

            Whatever God says; we can take to the bank. And some people would like for God to be unfaithful to the Jews these days, to break His irrevocable covenants with them… to send them all to hell. How ungodlike! Do we not understand that we are saved by covenant as well? That the blood of Jesus is the only thing standing between us and eternal separation from God? That our sins are forgiven by covenant… that this cruel world is coming to an end because of a covenant made way back in Genesis 3:15? Do we really want God to break His covenants?

            And now that we are nearing the finish line, are we going to lose interest… become complacent…abandon God’s outline for last day events… sit back and disengage from the harvest…hide our light under a bushel…avoid persecution at all costs? Those are bad traditions and we need to come out of them… to participate in the life of the Spirit of Christ in these last days. He gave us His Holy Spirit for a reason. Let’s find out what it is.