We just passed through what many folks (some Christians included) call the Christmas season. I find it amazing how the wondrous Gospel message can be boiled down into countless pageants and cantatas with a good moral meaning that talk around the birth of Christ, but never really express the heart of God and the truth of the message. The world makes billions of dollars every year on the good Christmas story and the ideas of what is projected in the Bible, but never embrace (Christians included) the message and take it to heart. There must be more. There is more. In a few months we will have a another good story with Jesus at the heart, but instead of Jesus being born He is killed. Every year these stories play out. In December Jesus is born and in April Jesus is put to death. No wonder people (Christians included) are confused. Now do not misunderstand me here the birth of Christ is wonderful and what can we say about the death of Christ on the cross? The death of Christ is one of the biggest events in history, even time is measured by Jesus’ death. Funny how people who disclaim His life use His birth and death to keep time. Without the death, burial, and resurrection (the Gospel see 1 Corinthians 15:1-11) of Jesus Christ we who are alive today would be hopeless without a promise of knowing a loving God and a promise of an eternal life with God. If we are alive today we shall live eternally this is the way God has arranged things, but not accepting Jesus Christ as the LORD of our lives we automatically (God has arranged this so) will be separated from God in hell for eternity. If we are alive today we all live forever only where: in heaven with God or ultimately in the lake of fire with Satan forever, our choice. I am not discounting the birth or death of Christ, but what I am saying is there must be more (there is more) than these good stories we hear every year and that the world sees. To the world (and some Christians) Jesus is a story book character. He is born we sing songs, trim trees, give each other gifts, and eat too much food then we kill Him and sing songs (Up from the Grave He Arose), talk about the Easter Bunny, give gifts, and eat too much food. Then in December He is born again and the cycle repeats its self to our shame. Praise God He arose from the grave in great victory and power and now I too can taste of some of His death and of His resurrection power. Most Christians do not want to taste of His death, but if we do not taste of His death there will be no newness of life in us. Paul tells us in Romans, “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:” (Romans 6:3-5) Now this is where I want to get in my thoughts the LORD gave me for this article. Our Christian walk must be more than good stories in the Bible or the parables and teachings of Jesus Christ. Again the parables are wonderful and are needed so do not get me wrong here, but there must be more, there is. There must be more in us than what we can mentally access from the Bible. There must be more than good stories, gift giving, and eating too much food. God is looking for more. In all of this God is looking for spiritual growth and development in our lives. And like in Romans our “newness of life” begins with our “likeness of his death.” God is looking for us taking what we have learned from the Bible (all of those good stories and parables) add the personal experiences (experiential knowledge = wisdom) He has been able to work into our lives, shake it well (not stirred) with confusion, heartache, disappointment, some sorrow, and voila’ you have some spiritual growth and development. God has no magic wand to bonk us over the head and then magically we have gained spiritual development. Oh no, spiritual development in God is painful and can hurt. But after the lesson (the test, situation, circumstance, you name it) we stand still smoldering in the morning from the refiners fire (those who have went through such things know what I am talking about) with a sense of knowing that propels us further along the way that God has for us to go. This work does not happen in church or good times, but in the recesses of our heart and the corners of our lives. This is the more God is looking for in us to unflinchingly pay. This death we experience to our self, as in Romans, is the beginning of our life. We say we want to know the power of His resurrection, well only dead people are resurrected. This was one of Paul’s desires, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;” (Philippians 3:10) Know the “fellowship of His sufferings?” Oh no I want to know His power, well God does not work that way. To know His power we must identify with His suffering and death. The Gospel message must be brought down to the heart level. Most sermons today flutter around the good stories and parables they go only so far, but never go down deep into the bowels of our thoughts, into our innermost inward places where God desires to dwell. I find people today are longing for the message of the Gospel to be brought down to the heart where true change is affected in our character. We say we want to know the power of the cross, but ignore the shame of the cross. The power of the cross is found only in us as we identify with the shame of it and with the shame of our own arrogance and haughty heart condition. Now I am talking (myself at times) to Christians here. I have pondered why this is so, maybe because we all are like Brother Peter who was radically committed to Jesus, but did not often know how to show his love for Him. And yet I know there must be more. Where does this more come from? The work of God in our lives.
I remember an old camp meeting song very popular years ago. Every year we would have camp at Union Grove Camp Grounds an Assembles of God site for a few weeks, wow what a time. The first week was called “Camp Happiness.” Well, I have learned names usually mean the opposite. “Camp Happiness” was not a happy place for us. Not much to do, no programs we were too poor to have the summer things that most camp grounds have. Then a week of nightly services. Here is where I found out about “Chick Tracks,” my favorite is “Holy Joe.” But we would sing songs like “Like a Mighty Sea” written by A. J. Zelley. “Like a Mighty Sea, Like a Mighty Sea, Comes the love of Jesus sweeping over me, The waves of glory roll the shouts I can’t control, Comes the love of Jesus sweeping o’ver my soul. Now I can easily believe that Brother Zelley was so lost in the grace of God when he said, “the waves of glory roll the shouts I can’t control” he was literally telling the truth. There was a work of God in his life that enabled him to write such words with passion. Remember passion is not emotion. Emotions are from our five senses, temporal and soulish, but passion has a purpose and flows from a deep experience we have had. You know many who sing, “the waves of glory roll the shouts I can’t control” can control their shouts easier than they can control their lust and their temper. If the average Christian would sing it this way, “the waves of glory roll my tongue I can’t control” they would be telling the truth. When we sing we seem to do a lot of lying to God. I suggest if we cannot feel it we do not sing it. Let us compromise and put it like this let us sing it saying it in our heart. Without the work God had done in Brother Zelley’s life in us we just mimic the words because we lack the work of God in our lives. Not just this song, but all hymns. The hymns have been birthed out of sorrow, soul-searching, depression, a feeling of hopelessness, but in the end victory though Christ Jesus. This is why they have lasted through the test of time. The new songs are here today, but gone tomorrow because in most cases there has not been any work of God done in the lives of the authors. Maybe we should study the origin of the hymns instead of singing them over and over without the understanding of the personal sacrifice that God required of the authors. There must be more than good stories to preach about. There is much more if you have the heart for it and for God.
