3 The Challenge to Gen Z (And Others)
3.1. Activist Warning
I’ll say this really early on. We are in a war for millions of souls, and Satan and his clones won’t care for you to be meddling in their business. That said, you and I having Christlike attitudes and character is essential. Hotshot “know-it-alls” blabbering every time something pops into our head, is a bad idea. Don’t do it. Truth too early, or too late… is no longer Truth. The table tennis brain-game of “yeah but” will kill you, and eventually it will ooze out of your mouth in a reaction. Take every thought captive BEFORE you blab it. Love one another deeply, from the heart.
“Activist” individuals or groups, acting or thinking you are “better than everyone,” is WAY not appropriate. That goes nowhere. Be an “unprofitable servant.” That is a good place to start, and to finish life.
You’ll be called enough names and lied about if you do it Jesus’ way. It’s a promise from Jesus that “If they hated Me, they will hate you. Two against three and three against two even amongst biological relatives.” It’s not my favorite Promise, but there it is. SO, there’s no sense in being ugly and actually deserving the verbal beating and ostracizing you will inevitably get anyway. If you stop blending into the world, and the cultural religious system, watch out brother, sister!
Again, this has to be repeated: Be kind, generous, patient, loving. Though a great path, it won’t save you from being hated and lied about—any more than it saved Jesus from that attack. Darkened, conniving hearts just are.
Still, never ever EVER allow anyone to blackmail, bully, or intimidate you into being just like them. “Press on to the High Calling,” anyway.
This is right. Love, forgive, be patient. We need His redemption, too. That’s not a small thing. Don’t undervalue in others the Blood of Jesus. The OUTCOME of the Blood and Spirit of Christ, will just happen when we are set “free indeed.”
3.2. The System Problem
There is NO possibility of circumventing clear Scripture that shows us His Way. And His Way is not not not what churchianity has been doing for centuries now.
Sure, we can splat on a new coat of paint now and then, to update our tech and marketing. But starting 150 years after Jesus went back to the Father’s side, we have obliterated the very Ecosystem from Heaven Jesus left in our care.
We have replaced His daily Life with a religious System of culture and convenience, mostly copied from other world religions, without any basis at all in Scripture. We now see that System literally everywhere. Does commonness make it right? Absolutely not.
3.3. The System Fade
The System is fading. It never worked well, or represented Jesus well, anyway.
Common religion is “for” Him, no doubt. But, it’s not what He showed us. And, therefore, it doesn’t and can’t possibly look like Him to the world or to our children, or the new generation.
Today’s culture of “inclusion” of compromise has not pleased Jesus, the Head. It has become a clever organization, a System driven by multiple components and fuels. His community (the Greek word for church, not a building) is not any longer community, and not any longer a living Organism, His Design, His Ecosystem. It isn’t Life. Today’s “thing” can’t/won’t/hasn’t turned God’s People away from sin, unrighteousness, vice, foul language, issues of “conforming to patterns of the world,” pride, greed, selfishness, laziness, idolatry, hedonism, lust, unforgiveness, judgments, bigotry, or racism. These, and a thousand other things that aren’t Jesus block our ability to WALK with Jesus.
Being Saved is for us. But, He Designed His LIFE to advance His Purposes and Heal the world. He could have just dropped a Book down from Heaven. But, He brought His LIFE that we would Walk with Him and draw from His Spirit Life together—to blow up Satan. “I will build My Family, against which the fortress of Hell cannot stand.” “And He will soon crush Satan under YOUR feet.”
Life isn’t all just about being Saved by Jesus. We all, and the entire world is robbed by the lack of Jesus’ presence and Spirit when the Ecosystem is not multiplying His Life within us, and then around us. The System is a killer of millions, though unintentional.
Cigarettes were once recommended by doctors, asbestos insulation was great, mercury was in medicine and thermometers and even rubbed into the skin, Thalidomide was a safe sleep aid until thousands of children were born with limb deformities, radium was added to toothpaste and chocolate (for energy), arsenic was in clothing dyes, and on and on. The System of attendance and clergy/laity is not generally healthy, not Biblical, and doesn’t bear His fruit—because it’s not what He founded from Heaven. But, lacking His fruit, the System uses His Name, like “Christmas,” often in vain.
Can we dare to move on now?