He Who Is More Than Able, Does Not Enable
God has not called me to celebrate the bad ideas of others.
God has not called me to celebrate the false claims of others.
God has not called me to celebrate the dangerous, unholy, or unrighteous ways of the world.
And so I won’t.
You can call it whatever you want–tolerance, affirmation, acceptance. In fact, make up fancy, new words and wear them out.
But celebrating the bad or harmful ideologies or occupations of others already has a name. It is called “enabling.”
And Christ wants more for the lost and expects more of His children. He would never have a bar so low. Nowhere in Scripture can you find Christ endorsing sin or giving credibility to false claims. He did not arrive in pagan places and congratulate Isis or Osiris on their temples or allow their worshipers to go on believing those ways were the right ways. He came correcting– “I am The Way.”
The demon possessed did not have their wounds dressed or excuses made on their behalf. Jesus did not try to convince their community to tolerate them as they were. He set them free so they could transform their communities. They were not pat on the head by the Savior, only to return to caves and cemeteries in torment. He cast the demons out.
He did not drop coins into beggar’s cups to allow them to beg another day but on a full stomach. He healed, so they could rise up, go, and lead a different life. Jesus was an interventionist.
Christ is not the parent supporting the addict’s habits or letting them use at home, for fear they be somewhere unsafe or unknown. Safety is temporal. Acceptance and affirmation are fleeting. Souls are on the line. Eternity is on the line. Enabling the lost to remain lost is not love. It is hate with hugs and manners.
Amen. That is why God sends prophets. Because as it were with the sin of the Amorites, God waits until the sin is full and then He judges. But He always warns first. His Spirit will not always strive with man. There comes a time of reckoning. Thing is, and it is ironic, that leaders God raise up to help a certain people are rejected by the very ones they are called to help. Korah, Dothan, and Abiram came against Moses and Aaron,
1 Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men:
2 And they rose up before Moses, with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown:
3 And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them: wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord? (Numbers 16)
Even before then, the children of Israel resisted: “But he that did his neighbour wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?” *** “This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush.” (Acts 7)
That is why I trust very few people, Christian or non-Christian. Sometimes unbelievers are nicer to me than Christians. Other times, it is the other way around. Sometimes those of my color are worse than the racists I have had to endure in my life. During a time of pain, suffering, and inner turmoil, when my first born died, it was Caucasian sisters that ministered unto me in my grief — Lydia, Betsy, Heather, and Casey — non-black names. Colored sisters were nowhere to be found. But plenty of competition and lies circulated.
Jesus came unto his own, and his own received him not. Jesus was a Jew and the religious leaders who turned him over to the Romans to be killed were Jewish. Surprise of all surprises, it was not the Romans that wanted Jesus dead but the Jewish Sanhedrin. Even Pilate did not want to but instead he listened to the peons and gave in when he should have listened to his wife.
Luke 4
And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.
Matthew 13:57
And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.
Mark 6:4
But Jesus, said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.
I’ve just resigned myself to a life of persecution and rejection. Jesus has made that crystal clear. I’ve just got to get through it.