Priorities

A preacher named T.F. Tenney once said, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” And what I've seen around me in recent times (especially in 2012) has done a pretty good job of convincing me that many of my fellow Christians and followers of Christ are not doing a very good job of following Bishop Tenney's idea. And I think I've finally gotten fed up enough to blog, so hold on to your hats.

I think the short version of what Bishop Tenney said is one word: priorities. And I think we need to examine ours.

• Playing the blame game does not help. Sitting around moaning about how everything has gone downhill since the Supreme Court banned prayer and Bible-reading in schools in the early 1960s is a cop-out. For one thing, all it banned was state-sponsored prayer and Bible-reading. If students want to pray silently, they can (and many probably do, come test time). And it did not ban prayer and Bible-reading in the home. Most work places do not open with prayer. Most college classes don't. And yet we hear no one complain about that. We need to take a much deeper look at what's wrong in the world instead of just fussing because we don't have teachers leading their first-hour classes in prayer.
• Quit fussing about little stuff, folks. Quit looking at people who say “Merry Xmas” and “Happy Holidays” like they're a bunch of God-haters and heathens. For one thing, I say it. Xmas is just a short way of saying Christmas, and as for saying Happy Holidays, not everybody celebrates Christmas. And where in the Bible does it command us to disrespect those who disagree with us?
• Quit making big things out of smaller things. People are dying lost without Christ in their lives every day in this country, and too many in the church are worried about whether the liberals are going to ban assault weapons. If the government does ban assault weapons, the world isn't going to end and Big Brother isn't going to drag you into Room 101. Worry about what's important, not what isn't.
• America is not New Israel. Don't get me wrong – I'm thankful for the freedom we have, especially the freedom to worship God. But I feel like the church has made a mistake by diving as hard into politics as it has. Max Lucado once said, “Love is only love if (it is) chosen.” But today, Christians are worried more about making people choose what's right than they are about letting them do it voluntarily. I think one of the biggest reasons that people, and especially younger people, are turning off to Christianity is that we're spending too much time trying to legislate morality than we are shining the light of Jesus Christ. It's like I told one of my best friends just a bit ago, “I think too many Christians are more worried about guns and gay marriage than they are (about) spreading the Gospel.”

I think James said it best more than 1,900 years ago. He simply said, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” (James 1:22-27, NKJV)