The Tide of the Battle
“For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side.” Luke 19:43
The tide of the Battle has changed. Picture a platoon of military men who have been fighting a war for quite some time, they have moved forward at times and they have retreated at times but now they find themselves surrounded with the enemy.
The tide in the battle has turned. Here’s what that means, it means that comfortable and convenient middle ground Christianity is a thing of the past. The cultural encirclement around orthodox Christianity is calling all people who claim an affiliation with Christ; it’s calling all men who claim faith in Jesus to an uncomfortable choice. The choice is, you can blend in or you can battle. The cultural compression that’s upon us right now will be forcing you to either tap out of your convictions and blend in, or you tap into your convictions about everything. Nothing is off the table – God, family, marriage, sexual preference, work place issues, gender roles, the justice and legal systems and yes there is an economics with all of that which makes it even worse. The role of religious right, religious liberties, it’s all going down right now. We can recognize it, we can choose to be God’s man in the middle of it or we can deny it, but again deciding not to decide how to think and live in the culture that you’re in as God’s man is not an option.
Here’s the deal fellas, you may not be deployed in Bagdad or Kabul or be placed along the Korean DMZ but make no mistake, as a man of God, your back is against the wall. Although you may have avoided direct conflict with what’s going on around us in the culture, in western culture specifically, but in global culture in a growing way it’s coming to your porch. The choice is no longer fight or flight. You are surrounded.
Father you are never contained, and neither am I when filled with the Holy.