May 01, 2013
Dust Off
The Montrose Daily Press (4-26-13) published a guest commentary written
by Ron Black on the secular and religious fabric of America. Mr. Black, an
active Christian minister and evangelist for 30 years, renounced his faith
saying, “As to your unspoken question,
no, I did not lose my faith as a born-again Christian. I gave it up purposely.
The motivation that drove me into ministry is the same that drove me out.” Interestingly, he claims to believe in God, but as a
humanist. By his own admission Mr. Black has not wondered away, nor is he lost.
It seems to me that with his declaration and rejection of Christ he has
relieved believers of the obligation to pray for him. I now have a sense of how
the disciples must have felt when they shook the dust off their feet as they
left a home or a town that rejected their message. “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the
dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. I tell you
the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of
judgment than for that town.” (Matt 10:14-15 NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----It would be interesting to know Mr. Black’s motivation. If he is being honest about it, I admire his consistency, however foolish he has been in its misapplication. But “interesting” is not worthy of the time it would take to know. Neither would knowing be useful, because there are nearly as many different motivations in this world as there are people. But there are only two categories of motivations. And to what a person’s has led him reveals to which his motivations belonged.
-----Broadly defined, I like to say all existence can be sorted into two categories as well: 1) God, and 2) not God. I don’t mean “not God” categorizes only bad. It holds everything created as well as everything twisted. God’s heavenly host who turned their backs upon Satan’s rebellion are “not God”, though they are godly and of God. The problem is that evil sorts into this same category, because it, too, certainly is not God.
-----We must recognize that we are talking about ultimate motivation. There are motives which serve other motives. They are like cobbles in a road. Although each are “road” in as much as they are pieces of road, they are not the road. The road is the road, and it goes somewhere not completely destined by any one of its pieces. It goes there by all of what it is. Mr. Black’s addressing the motivation for his coming to and leaving the faith, whether he or anyone else knows it as such, is addressing ultimate motivation.
-----In as much as roads can lead anywhere, this temporal life’s road leads everywhere. Like it’s confusion about God, Christ, man, and religion, its cobbles extend outward in any direction one could wish to go, as do the Great Salt Flats, or the middle of the ocean. Picking a motivation and following it consistently will take you somewhere. But only one “where” will do any human any good in the long run.
-----I like to say this good “where” is what it is. No man or anything else created can change what it is no matter how much or long he wills, works, or imagines it to be anything otherwise. It is simply true. The substance of my motivations, and those of any other follower of Jesus is to be accepted by and belong to that “where”. Saying it this way evades any twist of the truth. And I am comfortable saying it this way because it is what God said of Himself, “I AM that I AM.”
-----If a person’s motivation is of the gold brick road leading only to the “I AM”, that one-of-a-kind, then he will search the cobble under his foot to know its gold content. He will choose his steps from cobble to cobble according to which step will fall upon a cobble of more gold content than those he has walked past. It matters not how closely Mr. Black crafted his image of God and Christ. That he crafted images at all was from motivations of the wrong category. For what the living traveler truly sees of Christ and his Father is not an image, but a sense of reality made from examining himself according to their Word rather than by his own imaginings. Life’s true motivation is for reality to become what is as the I AM made it to be; it is the seeking, the praying, “Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done...” All other motivations are, “My kingdom come; my imagination be done.”
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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