Let the little Children

But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it."  Mark 10:14-15

This morning Erin my 5 year old daughter came to me and told me that she wanted to ask Jesus into her heart.   I have tried to never push my children into making any type of confession of faith, but I have also never backed away from taking the opportunity to present the gospel to them in a way that they can understand.     It is interesting that each one of them in their own way has come to me with questions about faith and belief.  I believe that is the working of the Holy Spirit.   I asked Erin if she knew what sin was, she nodded her head and said “disobeying parents”.     I explained to her that because of our sin, and disobeying parents is a great example, that we are separated from God and cannot go to God.   But God loves us so much that he wants us to come to him, so He made a way for us!  Jesus His son came and died on the cross to pay for our sins.    Now if we admit to him that we are sinners and receive his free gift of salvation we can be with God forever.   We prayed together and it was sweet to hear her ask God to forgive her for disobeying, and to ask him to come into her heart.  

Did Erin understand any of that?  I am not sure, in fact I almost blew her off and did not have the conversation with her at all, and surely she is too young to understand the concept of Salvation.   I am glad I did not do that.   Who am I to say that I know how God works in the mind of a child?     My Arminian friends would say that the Holy Spirit prompted her to make a decision for Christ.   My Calvinist friends would declare that this is evidence that she is one of the Elect, a child of the Covenant; chosen before the foundation of the world.   Some would argue about the terminology used;  “You should never call it asking Jesus into your Heart”.    “That it is not your decision it is God’s.  “   “Regeneration is not decisional, so stop saying you made a decision for Christ.”   Others make the argument that Jesus is a Gentleman and will not come in where he is not invited.   They say, “He has done all the work but you have to invite Him, and receive his free gift. “   I think we often try to make salvation much too complicated.   We try to work out our formulas, figure all the inner workings of Salvation and then fight over semantics.    The Rabbi’s refer to this as attempting to see the nakedness of God.     To put it another way, to think that we understand everything there is to know about how God works out His plan of Salvation is extremely arrogant.  We can only know what the Bible says about it and we have to accept everything the Bible says about it not just the things that support our view.

Jesus said, “Let the little Children come to me, do not hinder them, for to such belong the Kingdom of God.  Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it!”   How could I stand in the way of my own precious Child coming to Jesus?    May it never be, it is my job to tell her about Jesus and the free gift He has offered her.   It is the Holy Spirits Job to do the rest.  Even if I am inadequate in explaining the Gospel to her I trust that he Holy Spirit will override my inadequacy and open the eyes of her heart so that she may see Jesus.    I do not know how the Holy Spirit will manifest itself in the life of my child, but this one thing I do know.  I have been praying since the day that she was born that she would come to know Jesus at a very early age.   Why am I surprised when she begins asking questions about how to know Jesus?   Why do we pray and pray for Jesus to show up and then act surprised when He does?

Now, as far as how does one get saved, what does the Bible say about it?  The book of Romans makes it pretty clear,  “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”  Romans 10:9-11   You mean I do not have to understand and take a position on Supralapsarianism or Infralapsarianism?  And what if I am on the wrong side of that argument?  You mean it does not matter?  Actually No, it does not matter, and I know I am going to offend some by saying this.  I can leave all of those things in Gods hands.   I have a fallen and corrupt, finite mind. A mind that cannot begin to understand the inner workings of God.   Paul clarifies and outlines what I must believe in I Corinthians 15:  Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved…  For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,   I can simply trust in the fact that Jesus Christ died for my sins and was buried and rose again on the third day.

Some would argue that it cannot be as easy as saying a simple prayer! To those I would point to the example of the thief on the Cross. Luke tells us that there were two criminals who were hanged alongside of Jesus, one mocked Jesus, the other rebuked his fellow criminal and simply said “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” What did Jesus say?  “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”   what was that if not a simple prayer?   He recognized His need, and He recognized the only one who could help him and he asked for help. 

Some say it requires Great Faith!  Jesus says it requires the “Faith of a Child.”  In fact It may be that if you do not have great faith, that all you have to do is ask for it.  That is what the father of the demon possessed boy did in Mark chapter 9.    And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” 24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”   Here the man admits that he is having trouble believing and he asks Jesus to help him believe!  Maybe this is not specifically a salvation passage but it has become one of my favorite passages, at least in Mark.  Because I am prone to over-think things I often come across great periods of doubt.  It is those times that I run to this passage, Lord I believe! Help my unbelief!  And he always gives me the faith that I need.  So we are back at our crossroad, did God give me the faith and cause me to ask? Or did God give me faith because I asked?    Someone once said that on the door into heaven there is a sign that reads “Whosoever will may come”, as one enters the door he turns around and looks back over the door he just entered it says, “Chosen before the foundation of the World”.    Jesus puts it this way: All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. John 6:37  If you have come to Jesus, you were chosen before the foundation of the world.  My daughter Erin has expressed a desire to come to Jesus.  I do not have to worry about messing things up by using the wrong terminology or saying the wrong thing.  The Holy Spirit will lead her to the truth. 

I hope you are getting the point....

The LORD Is My Light and My Salvation

Of David.

1 The LORD is my light and my salvation;

whom shall I fear?

The LORD is the stronghold [fn1] of my life;

of whom shall I be afraid?

2 When evildoers assail me

to eat up my flesh,

my adversaries and foes,

it is they who stumble and fall.

3 Though an army encamp against me,

my heart shall not fear;

though war arise against me,

yet [fn2] I will be confident.

4 One thing have I asked of the LORD,

that will I seek after:

that I may dwell in the house of the LORD

all the days of my life,

to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD

and to inquire [fn3] in his temple.

5 For he will hide me in his shelter

in the day of trouble;

he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;

he will lift me high upon a rock.

6 And now my head shall be lifted up

above my enemies all around me,

and I will offer in his tent

sacrifices with shouts of joy;

I will sing and make melody to the LORD.

7 Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud;

be gracious to me and answer me!

8 You have said, “Seek [fn4] my face.”

My heart says to you,

“Your face, LORD, do I seek.” [fn5]

9 Hide not your face from me.

Turn not your servant away in anger,

O you who have been my help.

Cast me not off; forsake me not,

O God of my salvation!

10 For my father and my mother have forsaken me,

but the LORD will take me in.

11 Teach me your way, O LORD,

and lead me on a level path

because of my enemies.

12 Give me not up to the will of my adversaries;

for false witnesses have risen against me,

and they breathe out violence.

13 I believe [fn6] that I shall look upon the goodness of the LORD

in the land of the living!

14 Wait for the LORD;

be strong, and let your heart take courage;

wait for the LORD!

Footnotes:
27:1	Or refuge
27:3	Or in this
27:4	Or meditate
27:8	The command (seek) is addressed to more than one person
27:8	The meaning of the Hebrew verse is uncertain
27:13	Other Hebrew manuscripts Oh! Had I not believed

Why I don’t care what you think about me. Pt 2

16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.  Colossians 2: 16-19

Well that about sums it up…..

What I am trying to say is that I have grown weary of people saying , “if you are a true Christian, you will do such in such or so and so. “   From that point on they will go on and proclaim something that usually has more to do with personal preference or personal agenda  than anything else.    In the old days it was more behavioristic,  “You should not smoke, drink or chew or run with those that do.”     These days it is usually more subtle, and more along the line of browbeating  or guilt-tripping .    

  

“You really need to go on this spiritual retreat”   

 “If you want to grow spiritually you will read this book.”    

 “You really need to have your devotions when you first get up,  if you wait to the middle of the day  or  before you go to bed you have missed out”.   

 Some try to tell us that we have gotten too intellectual  in our walk while others say we are two emotional or not emotional enough.   Some have tried to equate political issues with the gospel of Christ.   “If you are really a Christian you will vote this way.”   Now,  my relationship with Christ absolutely effects the way I think, behave and even the way I vote, however it is my relationship with Christ that effects those things  NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!   

Here is an example,  I really cannot understand how someone who claims to follow Christ will continually vote for people who not only refuse to protect the rights of the unborn but they actively participate in the killing of unborn human beings.   It may be my responsibility as a Christian to lovingly attempt to show them why as a follower of Christ  I cannot support  a political candidate that supports abortion.  But what if they don’t agree with me?  Do I pull out my hell card and say “well if you don’t vote this way you can not be a Christian?”  This happens every day with all types of issues.    There has to be a point where I say, I told you what the Bible says on that issue, now I have to stand aside and let the Holy Spirit do its job.     I will be the first to tell you that I have not always been able to do that.    There is more I ‘d like to say on this but I can’t right now, except to say that there is an awful lot of that type of thing happening on all sides of the political spectrum.    Someone recently tried to make the claim that people who believe ( such and such ) on a particular political issue,  did not understand the Gospel of Christ.   Now the particular issue he was talking about, to be honest,  did not have anything to do with one’s final destination.   How I come down on either side of that particular issue will not have anything to do with my position in Christ.  So why did he try to make so?  I am not real sure, I suspect he did not really think about what he said. If I were more cynical ( me a cynic? may it never be ;))  I would say he couched his statement so that one would have no choice but to agree with his statement. 

You are more than welcome to disagree with me;  but if you do, do not claim that I do not understand the Gospel of Christ, I understand it very well thank you! It is simply:

             

   ‘…Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: ‘  I Corinthians 15: 3b & 4  

Paul tells us in the verses preceding that If we hold fast to this teaching  we will be saved, “unless we have believed in vain”.     Is it possible to believe in vain?  I don’t know but I do know that it has nothing to do with, “opposing abortion, supporting the poor, woman’s rights, immigrant rights or any of the other things we like to argue about these days.  Perhaps a Christian should come down on one side or other on those issues but it has nothing to do with the gospel.   

I don’t know about all that other ‘stuff’, but this one thing I do know,  Jesus Christ Died for my sins according to the scriptures,  and I expect to swing out into eternity resting on that fact.

And that is why I do not care what you think about me!

Stay thirsty my friend. 

Performance vs Grace or Why I don't care what you think about me!

In the Frank Peretti  book I am reading, he has a line, "Salvation by grace, Christianity by performance?"

Have you ever felt that way?   I know I have. A friend of mine who attended the same Christian High School that I attended put it this way…..  “Grace was for the sinner, not for the saint”.     Have you ever caught yourself saying “I can’t because I am a Christian?”     Our Mormon friends;  and I use the term friends very loosely there is very little if any common ground I can find with that cult, have a t-shirt that says “I can’t I’m Mormon”.     Have you ever heard a sermon or a Sunday School lesson on the Freedom we have in Christ followed up by a list of things we should or should not do.    My favorite line most fundys have is “I can drink all the beer I want to, I just don’t want to! Can I hear an AMEN!”    I have always wanted to respond, “ Well ok then, when I want a beer, I’ll drink a beer!”

So why have I never had the nerve to speak up and say just what I was thinking, you know why!   I would be condemned on the spot,  “If you were really walking with Jesus you would not have the desire, yada , yada, yada… and what about your testimony blah, blah, blah,…..

This is not a post about the consumption of alcohol being a sin or not, that may come later, this is about performance verses grace.    The non-consumption of alcohol is just one of those convenient performance benchmarks that a lot of Evangelical and Fundamentalist have. ( I know, I am using labels I have not defined yet but just go with me on this, I will bet back to the labeling I promise )

 Most of us who take the Bible seriously would agree that we bring absolutely nothing to the table. 

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.  Romans 5:6-11

So there is nothing I can do to earn my salvation, God loved me and died for my while I was still a sinner!  Actually before I was born, so within the constraints of time all of my sins were future at the point in time of the cross.   They were paid for then!  Ephesians tell us it was part of his plan before the foundation of the world.

 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us [fn2] for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known [fn3] to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.  Ephesians 1:3-10

He may be even clearer about that in  2 Timothy:

“ who saved us and called us to [fn1] a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.” 2 Tim 1: 9

I could go on and on, but you get my point, salvation has nothing to do with performance!  Guess what, neither does Sanctification, Fellowship, walking with Christ, or just being a “Good Christian!”   I want to point you to Romans 8 , I love to camp out in Romans 8 I believe it is the high point of all of scripture, but today specifically at verse 29 & 30:

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son!  Who is going to conform me?  I cannot conform myself!  He is!    Notice the progression and that it is all past tense! As far as God is concerned it is completed.  In fact according to Ephesians I have already been raised up and seated with Christ in Heaven!

and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.   Ephesians 2: 6

So if it is already a done deal, who am I preforming for?  Jesus?  If I fast and read the Bible God will be impressed and answer my prayer, right!?  Please,   not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace…  If you think there is anything you can do that would impress Him…well,  you just need to go back to square one, you bring NOTHING to the table.  We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment Isaiah 64:6a   Galatians points out that this applies to works post salvation as well as pre salvation.   For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” Gal 3: 10-11

So who are we performing for? Well most of the time we are performing for other Christians.  “I better not do, (insert anything you want to here) because it might offend ( insert anyone other than Jesus here) “  If you have ever thought that or said that or changed the way you do something because of what someone else might say or think, then you are living your life based on performance instead of the Grace of God.   Have you ever been out to dinner with your wife or husband and not ordered a glass of wine because someone from ‘The Church’ might show up? ( there I go on the alcohol again but it is just too easy)  Have you ever been out with your family on a Sunday afternoon and decided I won’t go to Church because I don’t have time to change? If so, you are a performance based Christian.  Have you ever gone to Church only because if you didn’t someone might think you are a backslidden heathen?  Then you are a performance based Christian!  What does Jesus think of Performance based Christians?   The Book of Galatians was written to a group of people who were doing just that.   The Galatians were a group of people who had received the Grace of Christ, yet had gotten caught up in keeping a lot of rules.  They had been told by a group of people that it is great that you believe in Christ but now you have to keep the Law!  They were trying not to ‘offend’ their brothers down in Jerusalem.  They were trying to please other men ( and women)  They had bought the lie of performance! But Paul lets them know very quickly “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant [fn2] of Christ.”    So if you are doing whatever it is you are doing, in order to please men you are not a servant of Christ.      If you are a performance based Christian you are not a servant of Christ.

We all get caught up in it.  Paul goes on to tell a story about Peter, who had been told in a vision that God had made all things clean, got caught up in hypocrisy at Antioch when he refused to eat with Gentile believers.  Peter who knew better I caught up in performance.   “I don’t have to keep kosher anymore, but see how much better I am than those heathens who are actually practicing their freedom”.     We do the same thing all the time.  We need to remember the only performance that matters is Christ, and He performed it all on the Cross!

 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness [fn2] were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Stay Thirsty my friend!

Labels

Have you ever had anyone ask, "What are you?"  Usually before you answer that question there has to be some sort of context.  Are we talking politics?  You might answer Liberal, Conservative, or everyone's favorite, Independent-Moderate.   One might throw out party labels, Democrat, Republican, and Libertarian.    Sometimes that question is asked in terms of Religious affiliation, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu ….and the list could go on.   Of course once the BIG label is established, you have to drill down...So, you're a conservative,  Are you a fiscal conservative, or a social conservative, perhaps a Tea Party conservative?    The point is that there are a lot of labels, and different labels can mean different things to different people!     Take the label Christian for instance, what does that mean?  The priest burning incense at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem,  The guy screaming at me through a bull horn on the Marietta Square,  The guy handling snakes in the North Georgia mountains and the guy with the nerdy glasses at Starbucks telling me Jesus was probably gay, all claim to be Christians.   So what do we need, well we need more labels!

So you are a Christian, are you Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or Protestant?  But that is still not enough, are you liberal or conservative, and to confuse the issue more a conservative Roman Catholic and a Conservative Protestant are still worlds apart.   So let us say for the sake of argument that we have established the big labels, Christian, Protestant, Conservative;  I am going to skip over the whole denominational thing for a moment, because we have yet another fork in the road.  Election verses Free-Will, maybe before that break we have Covenant verses Dispensational, then you have the three branches, Amillennial, Premillennial and Post Millennial.  Which should not be confused with  Pretribulationalism,  Midtribulationalism, and Post tribulationalism.   Are you confused yet?  If not you are not paying attention.   

The question is how are we to make sense of all of these labels?  What do they really mean? ( one person’s conservative is another person’s liberal)  Finally does it really matter?    When I was in college we used to like to say, "I don't like labels, because they don't really mean anything."   That works fine until someone changes the sugar label with the salt label and you put a cup of salt in the birthday cake you were baking.   In that case you may just end up with a birthday cake that tastes really bad.   But what if someone changes the sugar label with arsenic?  Then you end up with some dead people on your hands.    Remember the rhyme you learned in chemistry? 

Little Timmy took a drink,

But he will drink no more,

For what he thought was H2O,

Was H2SO4.

Labels help us Identify, truth from error and food from poison.  

So over the next few weeks, months, years, decades; I am going to attempt to identify the labels and then actually label myself!   Honestly I am not sure if it can be done, but over the last few months I have been asking myself, what am I?  

I guess that is what the essence of this blog is all about.  Who am I?   What am I?  

Feel free to drop in and comment on my navel gazing,  My next post might be about supralapsarianism verses infralapsarianism, or Georgia Tech's colors, Old Gold, White & Blue vs  Old Gold, White & Black?

Who knows, but we will try to stick a label on it.  Let's just hope no one switches them on the way!

Rambelings on C.S.Lewis

I posted this a number of years ago…

I love the way the Voyage of the Dawn Treader starts..
"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. His parents called him Eustace Clarence and his schoolmates called him Scrubb. I can't tell you how his friends spoke to him, for he had none. He didn't call his father and mother "Father" and "Mother", but Harold and Alberta. They were very up-to-date and advanced people. They were vegetarians, non-smokers and teetotallers and wore a special kind of underclothes."

Did you catch that? Lewis does not care much for the "modern" ok lets all say it together LIBERAL way of doing things, specially raising children. I don't think I had ever caught that last sentence until reading it again with my children recently. I especially like the way he lumps them all together with vegetarians, non-smokers and teetotalers!  Then if that is not enough they wore weird underwear; were they Mormon? C.S. Lewis both drank and smoked, a pipe; i believe maybe cigars. I'm sure he got sick of all the busy body nannies around telling him she should do neither. As if either of those things hindered him from writing such brilliant works like The Chronicles of Narnia, Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. That was 50 years ago it has gotten much worse today. Now our government has gotten in on the act. I mean aren't there more important things for our government to be doing than banning smoking from all public places? Or telling CEO's how much they can make. I hope to be a CEO, well CIO one day. Who is the government or the Church or even my mother to say how much I should make? Now smoking cigarettes is just dumb but if you want to destroy your lungs in spite of all the medical information we have who am I or the Government to tell you what you can or can not do.

It is not just smoking, last fall at one of my son’s soccer games, a mom, who attends our Church, came up to me and said she had seen me out riding my bike earlier that morning. I started making small talk about I don't get to ride nearly as much as I would like to, then she said " I noticed you were not wearing a helmet, you really should you know." Excuse me! Am I your child? Am I not a 40 year old man? OK 44 but who is counting. ( i still feel 20) The point is I am old enough to make decisions for myself. Is she offering to come to my house and fold my underwear? Because if she is going to act like my mother she is going to take on the whole job! What is happening to us? can we not think for ourselves? Do we need someone to hold our hands all the time? Apparently there are a lot of people out there who think so.

That brings me to another pet peeve of mine. In the Evangelical Christian world there is a fad called Accountability Groups. Not where you thought I was going with this is it? Yes it is a fad, it comes and goes. Anyway men are supposed to sit around drink coffee stuff their faces with doughnuts and hold each other accountable. Accountable for your daily walk with Christ, your relationships stuff like that. Which I suppose is ok, what I object to is the idea that EVERY MAN NEEDS to be in an Accountability Group. The way they will look down at you if you are not in an Accountability group. Excuse me, I have a personal relationship with the sovereign God of the universe. Is He not strong enough to hold me Accountable? Some of them actually go around the circle and ask questions like " did you look at pornography this week?" Some of them ask very personal questions about the relationship you have with your wife, not taking into account that your relationship with your wife is sacred and PRIVATE! My dad went to one once, it was made up of all pastors in the area, at this group they passed out a questionnaire with questions like have you ever rented a pornographic video? Check Yes or No. Dad told me he refused to fill it out. He told the men in that group, "that if I say Yes, you will think I am not fit for the ministry, some of you will go home and tell your wives maybe even you congregation. At the very least you will smugly think, I'm doing a lot better than that guy. If I say No you obviously will not believe me, or you will think that guy thinks he is perfect and is just waiting for an opening in the Trinity. Is there any one here that honestly thinks I could get up in the pulpit every week, and preach the world of God to my congregation knowing I have been living my life in this way? Do any of you do that? There you go, if you say yes, we will all think you’re not fit for the ministry, if you say no it is human nature to not believe you."  I have never been so proud of my Dad, I really wish I could have been there, I would have liked to seen the looks on their faces. Some of them wouldn't know an expository sermon if it bit them on the butt...but that is another issue...

Now I am not saying do not participate in small group Bible Studies or prayer groups. There is a difference. One is allowing the Holy Spirit to work in each individual in its own way. The other is a bunch of busy bodies trying to usurp the Holy Spirits role. Like Aslan says, "everybody has his or her own story, and they are only told their story, not someone else story."
We say we don't want a nanny state government. ( although most of the population voted for one the last two elections)
Why do we want a bunch of nanny Christian's running around?