Saddle Up Your Horses!

Today's Word:
Acts 14:5-18 (Paul performs his first miraculous healing in the name of Jesus at Lystra; the locals take him for a Greek god)
Psalm 115:1-4, 15-16 (Not to us, O Lord, but to your name give glory)
John 14:21-26 ("The Holy Spirit...will teach you everything and remind you of all that I taught you")

Saddle up your horses!

Started out this morning in the usual way
Chasing thoughts inside my head
I thought I had to do today
Another time around the circle
Try to make it better than the last
I opened up the Bible
And I read about me
Said I'd been a prisoner
And God's Grace had set me free
And somewhere between the pages,
It hit me like a lightning bolt
I saw a big frontier in front of me
And I heard somebody say 'Let's go!'

Saddle up your horses
We've got a trail to blaze
Through the wild blue yonder of God's amazing grace
Let's follow our leader into the glorious unknown
This is the life like no other whoa whoa,
This is the great adventure

Come on, get ready for the ride of your life
Gonna leave long faced religion
In a cloud of dust behind
And discover all the new horizons
Just waiting to be explored
This is what we were created for, yeah

Saddle up your horses
We've got a trail to blaze
Through the wild blue yonder of God's amazing grace
Let's follow our leader into the glorious unknown
This is the life like no other whoa whoa,
This is the great adventure

We'll travel on, over mountains so high
We'll go through valleys below
Still through it all we'll find that
This is the greatest journey
That the human heart will ever see
The love of God will take us far
Beyond our wildest dreams
Yeah, oh saddle up your horses
Come on get ready to ride

Saddle up your horses
We've got a trail to blaze
Through the yonder of God's amazing grace
Let's follow our leader into the glorious unknown
This is the life like no other whoa whoa,
This is the great adventure

--The Great Adventure (1992)
Steven Curtis Chapman

Over the course of Judeo-Christian history, there are many instances where a paradigm shift appears in the way people approached God.

Many of these come from the grass roots, as it were. The chosen shepherd boy David slew a giant and became the greatest of Israel's kings. The prophets of Old Testament times called for a change of heart at the top; when kings didn't do so, the nation ultimately suffered.

Jesus was born of a virgin betrothed to a carpenter. The Apostles had been fishermen, tax collectors, and tent makers. Once they received the Holy Spirit, they stood Judaism on its collective ear, and then moved on to the rest of the known civilized world. Paul of Tarsus would travel all the way to Rome, as would Peter.

When God called upon Francis of Assisi to "rebuild the Church" it meant more than to repair crumbling buildings.

When Martin Luther, John Calvin, John and Charles Wesley, and other reformers parted company with Roman Catholicism, it was in their minds at first to preserve the Christian faith from the political corruption that was seen in Rome and throughout Europe.

In the 19th and 20th Centuries there have been periods of religious revival. Over the last fifty years, many of the rituals associated with the Church have undergone change to reflect an assimilation or association with modern art, culture, and expression.

The nature of God does not change, yet God in His infinite goodness is dynamic. The psalmist of David's time astutely recognized this:
"When you send forth your spirit...you renew the face of the earth" (Psalm 104:34).

With each new generation and the state of creation they inherit, the dynamics change. There are still countless people who do not 'know' God because history points at Church leadership who seem to have put themselves and/or a political agenda above the mission God established and that Jesus proclaimed. These will not be swayed by coercion or by threat of peril to their immortal souls. Christ must come to them, somewhere at their level; with compassion, mercy, and with the gentle prodding of the Good Shepherd, if they would be fruit-bearing branches of the Vine.

Doing this will no doubt infuriate the high and mighty, bound to maintain the status quo as they inherited it. But that is NOT the way God intended it. God wants us, like Jesus, to boldly go where none have gone before.

No doubt there will be alienation and the associated anguish and pain. But to the person with firmly rooted faith, determination and hope is not far behind; and the Spirit of God is with that person.

"Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him" (John 14:23).