August 24, 2006
Saving the World...
Fox News recently had a program segment titled ‘Purpose Driven Life, ‘Can Rick Warren Change the World?’ Hmm…Jesus changed the world, the Word of God changes the world, and the Spirit can change the world …but can Rick Warren change the world? Warren wants to network churches (50 million evangelicals) to fight what he considers to be the five global giants; Spiritual emptiness, Egocentric leadership, Poverty, Disease, and Illiteracy; and Africa (emphasis on Aids) is his new global mission field. The reporter asked the question, “Has he (Warren) bitten off more than he can chew?” Because he is pastor and CEO of Saddleback church, Rick’s followers might not have a choice on whether or not to support his new mission. However as one of the 50 million evangelicals, I don’t want Rick Warren, Billy Graham or Pat Robertson selecting a mission project for my church to support. Please don’t get me wrong, I believe Rick Warren’s endeavor to be a worthy secular project, but I’ve looked at Scripture and I just can’t find his five global giants in the Great Commission, Matt 28:16:20. What say we ‘target’ the United Nations with his project rather than independent churches?
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Gail;
----Didn't Jesus already do that? I guess the reason why we don't see a perfect world sense Jesus has saved it is because He left everyone here a free will to climb aboard that salvation and behave accordingly, or not. So then, even though salvation has been freely and sufficiently provided to wipe the entire world squeaky clean of the sin man performs upon it, the world remains a mess because man has almost entirely chosen to not participate in the Lord.
----Bless all their hearts, there has been no shortage of good men who have come along with the bandaid to apply to that nasty wound Jesus left unhealed. When these geniuses are in the government, the citizens suffer like slaves to the pet projects of their domineering programs. When they are in the media industry, the people themselves are turned into stampeding hordes of brainwashed victims. But when they are in the ministry the very light that Jesus needs to shine in the world grows dimmer.
----I have never been able to figure how leaders reconcile their drive to lead ever bigger and bigger groups and organizations with God's need to prevent the centralization of error by keeping the mass of humanity broken down into smaller autonomous societies and nations (the Tower of Babel principle). And especially in Jesus Christ the relationship between man and God is one on one. The direction of a man's life by God is from God. Whatever influence from others who know the Lord that may be necessary in a man's life is certainly intended to be limited, if we take Paul seriously. He wrote extensively about how the independence of the Christian life supplies spiritual vitality and strength to the body.
----But those who would have themselves cloned in everyone around them still circulate among us, forgetting that it is Satan that the Lord will have crushed beneath their feet, not the individuality of their brothers and sisters. I think that Rick Warren's battle against these five global giant problems would be very effective if he divided it into two units. After the first unit is taught and thoroughly obeyed, then we all could move on to unit two, which would be: spiritual emptiness, poverty, desease, and illiteracy. That leaves, to be thoroughly learned and followed first as unit one: the elimination of egocentric leaders.
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