Aaron Mapes

I love the ocean. There is just something so compelling about it. The beauty. The majesty. The raw, unstoppable force and power. Nothing man can do will ever be able to stop the waves from pounding the shore!

When I was in college, when I wanted to feel closer to God through His creation, I would drive and park on West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz, open the sunroof of my car and listen to the waves slam against the rocks with such incredible force, and the sound would echo through the night air. I couldn’t see the waves from my car, but I could hear them crash with such astounding force. For me, it was a metaphor and a picture of God Himself. Unstoppable. Powerful. Nothing known to man now or in the future would ever be able to stop Him or hold back what He is doing or has promised to accomplish.
Whether I was sitting in silence (listening to the waves beat against the rocks) or praying and talking with God, there was a tremendous sense of awe and wonder. Not only did God create the ocean, but He has complete command and control over it. In multiple encounters in the gospels, we see Jesus literally command the wind and waves, and they obey His every word, leaving the disciples in what I can only imagine was breathless awe and wonder as they questioned among themselves, “Who is this that even the wind and waves obey Him?” I’m convinced that it was moments like these that took Peter from simply believing that Jesus was the promised Messiah to the belief that Jesus was the Son of the living God worth living and dying for.

Another Jesus…

The past few years, I’ve had a growing concern regarding what we’ve come to call “Western Cultural Christianity” (WCC for short). It’s an expression of Christianity that is increasingly rooted in something other than the Jesus of scripture. It is a Christianity focused largely on the will and desire of the individual instead of on Christ and His mission. It has a “christ” that appears to exist for our personal gain, as opposed to one that calls us to lose this life and count all as loss. One that accepts and tolerates open sin as opposed to one who died to set us free and who empowers us to walk in righteousness. This Christianity has a “christ” made in our image, instead of one whose image we are being conformed to. Instead of a Christianity centered around Jesus and His Kingdom, we find ourselves creating unbiblical expressions across every spectrum of our social and political culture from Progressive Christianity to Moral Therapeutic Deism and Christian Nationalism.

This syncretized, wide-path Jesus regularly contradicts the Jesus of scripture who calls us to die, assures us that persecution will come and reminds us that,  “the way is narrow that leads to life and those who find it are few.” It has no room for a Jesus that boldly proclaims:

 “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”

 

Die to ourselves? Lose this life? Renounce all we have to be His disciple? This biblical Christ is increasingly foreign to most of Western Cultural Christianity and to many of our churches. In fact, many so-called “christians” find this biblical Christ oppressive, unattractive and unpalatable to themselves or the culture. Many others simply choose to ignore Him and pursue their own desires. The thought of doing these things is so foreign to them, though they use His name freely while justifying their disobedience to nearly everything He teaches.

 

Returning to truth

Perhaps one of the greatest ironies and mysteries is that although we’re living in unparalleled times and drawing closer than ever to the return of Christ, it seems the majority of “christians” are too busy for Christ, His Kingdom and His Church. At a time when Hebrews tells us to gather together more as we, “…see the day drawing near,” we’re actually less committed to Christ and His Kingdom than ever before. The Church in Acts met daily in the temple courts and from house to house, while the average Western Christian can barely make time for one to two hours on a Sunday. Sadly, the average Christian is now embodied by someone who attends a religious service once every three to six weeks. Most cannot say Christ is the center of anything, and worse, this false christ of Moral Therapeutic Deism reinforces this false religion our culture has created and a notion that Christ demands nothing of us. A simple reading of the “red letters” in their bibles would refute this false, cultural “christ,” but few know what those red letters say nor take the time to read them.

 

In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul writes these powerful words that we need to hear once again:

 

“For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.”

 

Friends, Jesus is real … there’s nothing more real! In light of this, and if we believe that to be true, then it is time for an awakening in our churches to reclaim from Cultural Christianity and its false “christs” the essence of what it means to follow Jesus … which is nothing less than a call to die to ourselves and once again making Christ the center of everything in our lives. The time is long since past for being of the world and in love with its things. May we no longer live for our fleshly passions, but for the one who died and rose again.

 

God, grant to us your grace and empower us by your Spirit to live with the greatest intentionality of our lives with whatever time we have left. May love compel us to give the best of what you have given us for the calling you’ve given to your Church, and we pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send forth laborers. It is not a “little” commission we’ve been given but a Great Commission. Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Soli deo gloria (For the Glory of God Alone).

 

Aaron Mapes is the lead pastor of First Assembly of God. He can be reached at 541-447-7254.