If you haven’t noticed, there is a problem with how the Church interacts with the world. They’re missing each other–and by all appearances, they hate each other.

But I don’t think the church needs to become more Hipper to grab people. Shortly after the early church days, the church became so hip that Constantine joined the Church and the government (Roman) into one holy union. (Kind of like a marriage, right?) You know what followed? Over a millennium of darkness.

Jesus was very intentional about accepting people where they were at, and He did this by loving and forgiving them.

But He had one condition: to receive the Life He had to offer, they had to accept Him. Jesus was very bold about Who He was and the need for people to accept Him to receive life. If people didn’t accept Him (and the life He offered), He didn’t denounce them or throw a tantrum, He simply wept and moved on, unoffended.

Why are we ashamed of Jesus? To be ashamed of Jesus is to be ashamed of love, acceptance, forgiveness and sacrifice! But I think that what scares us is His demands that we admit our own frailty and sinfulness, and that we worship God. This is humbling. But the pain and fear of surrender is incomparable to the peace and joy of walking closely with Almighty God.

Constantine married the world to the church, but to do that he divorced the church from Jesus Christ. Are we willing to do the same? Are we willing to forsake Jesus to please the world?

Constantine got darkness, and so will we. Without Jesus we have nothing…because Jesus is everything.

CD