Massive Distractions

Matthew 13:15 For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear,
and their eyes they have closed,lest they should see with their eyes
and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.’

Have you stopped and looked around to see how distracted everyone is today? It makes my brain hurt to think through the intense demands on schedules and up to the second information sharing of every kind. While being informed about the world around us in broad strokes can be fruitful, having our senses consumed by the continuous broadcast of worldly thought, entertainment and news is quite deadly.

Christ, in the above verses, is speaking about people and the Gospel. The words He used in 30 A.D. above are still amazingly accurate today, even with all of our enlightened learning and gadgetry. Maybe even especially because of our enlightened learning and gadgetry. Jesus says that there Hearts are dull, their ears are ineffective and their eyes are almost shut to God, because they are quite satisfied without Him as they are enjoying all of their stuff. They all sense in a dull way that they are sinful and need some religious action to justify themselves, but are comfortable as long as they get to stay in control and right the rules. In their erroneous life, they do not sense the need of a savior as "Life is Good". That should start to sound familiar.

Jesus Clearly states how the Gospel germinates in one's soul:

1) See with your eyes
2) Hear with your ears
3) Understand with your Heart
4) Turn from sin and Follow Christ
5) Then Christ Heals

These first three are easy to interpret. We see, we hear and then we understand. The challenge to all of us is this: How much of what we see and hear is from God, if anything? If we do not seek "The Shepherd who leaves the 99 for the 1", we will not see or hear, and we will not understand the things of God. Why? Our senses are over run with things of this world and the Spirit's outpouring is beyond our faculties. It is only when God humbles us in the core of our gut to the point when we know we are in desperate need of Him, and we die to ourself, that we can see and hear the things of the Kingdom. It is then, when we are in the spot of a drowning swimmer yelling out to the lifeguard for help, that we are able to truly hear and see the things of the Kingdom. Once we know we need, we can hear, see and understand the things of the Kingdom of God.

That leads us to the fork in the road. Which way we will choose. If we truly understand our position as sinners hanging by a thread in need of God in a mighty way, that does not mean we are in. We must turn from sin, and follow Christ. This repentance is a life attitude of "God you are right, I am wrong , and I am going to let your cross crucify those things that I want to do". While this salvation power does not immediately make you eternally sinless, it definitely makes sin taste like an ashtray and the things of God taste as sweet as Honey as the Holy Spirit convicts and guides us. It is at the point of true salvation where God shows us how we had it all upside down and backwards. The things our sin nature craved were not really fun, they were destructive....kind of like Eve taking a bite of death thinking she was going to get more life.

So how much of the bible do you see clearly?
How much of the Good News about Christ, the way He explains Himself do you really know?
Do you understand, "I desire Mercy and not sacrifice'?
Have you turned your sin over to God's wrath on Christ?
Finally, Have you been healed by Him and you can testify to His power to defeat sin?

This is what Jesus came to do right? Make war on sin and heal and regenerate. He did not come to just inform people but to overthrow evil and make that possible for us.

There are a lot of people this day and age doing the first three, yet refusing to repent and turn form their sin and so they remain unreleased from their sin. They believe that God will accept them being an "informed, yet content raging drug addict" or a"Knowing its wrong in the bible, yet ultra content homosexual". These people have little regard for what God states about salvation throughout the bible and have invented a synthetic gospel which has some elements of truth to it, but fails to apply the Power of God to their sinful lives. The Gospel is a bout regeneration and restoration from sin to God's truth and life, not a bunch of theories and a church routine to clean your conscious. Most importantly they miss the fact that a good God wants to unshackle them from the bonds of the sin that enslaves them. A person outside the kingdom doesn't see it that way. They don't see removal of sin as a blessing. When repentance comes up they see someone messing with the thing that identifies them as unique or special, makes them an independent thinker and is their flaming desire. What they see is Jesus trying to topple their God - and they will have none of it.

"The idea that God will let a rebel into heaven that has not quit his rebellion is not only unbiblical, it lacks common sense" A.W. Tozer

If I am not mistaken I think the Devil already tried that - didn't he?