TREE

Remember the hard-core days of slavery? Well, you probably don't; neither do I. But that was a time where the country was seriously divided into two opposite camps. We have that today in the church.

Now ... I love the church. That may be an exaggeration of the obvious, since I've given my life to it. But I mean it. I believe the church is the hope of the world. By 'the church,' I mean YOU and ME ... the PEOPLE. Not the BUILDING. Still, the church has some thinking to do lest it tear itself apart all the while it is trying to reach the world with the Gospel of Christ.

One one far side is the group that dives right in and conforms to whatever the culture is doing at the moment. They flaunt their freedom and enjoy everything God has created - and I mean EVERYTHING. They belong TO the world.

On the other far side is the group that wants to stay as far as possible from people and culture and society in order to remain 'unstained.' They insist that doing those things grants some form of holiness. They live OUTSIDE the world.

Kary Oberbrunner illustrates it just right for me. Imagine these people in the Garden of Eden. God says: "Here's the beautiful place I've created for you. Enjoy it. Skip thru it. Have fun. I've made you immortal and the only thing you have to do to stay that way is make sure not to eat from this Tree right here, OK?"

Now ... put these two groups of people I mentioned earlier IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN.

If you're in that first group, you ignore God's voice and head straight for the Tree. Not with the express intention of eating the forbidden fruit; just to be near it so you can identify with it - become more familiar with it - study it so as to better understand how it could potentially kill you. Maybe you'd get as close to the Tree as possible without actually eating from it - rub up against it - take your knife and carve your initials in it - do anything and everything imaginable with the Tree EXCEPT eat from it.

Not good. But if you're in the second group, what you do is start adding to God's original instructions. "He told me not to eat of the fruit of this Tree. But then I probably shouldn't touch it either; that's only common sense. And if I shouldn't touch it, maybe I'd better build a fence around it - a really tall fence so I can't even see it. God will approve. Eventually, God will endorse and adopt my plans as His own. In fact, that Tree is so bad that I'll impose these rules on my wife and my friends and anyone else around me -- for their own protection and good, of course. And if any of them disagree with me or denounce what I'm planning, I'll condemn them as less spiritual than I."

Not good. The problem is: we don't have just ONE alluring Tree today; we have millions. And we have at least as many choices in response.

We can say: "Everything is created by God and is good for our enjoyment if it is received with gratitude." It's too much work to figure out what is good and what is bad. It takes too many brain cells, so let's just consume everything in our path. As a result, the world doesn't notice anything positive or spiritual because it's hidden beneath carnal choices.

We can say: "So much fruit is dangerous and deadly; therefore, let's stay away from all of it at all costs." The risk of choosing something terribly wrong stops us from choosing anything at all. So we boycott culture rather than discern culture. And we form a Christian sub-culture that is of our own making rather than God's making; opposed to everything for no good reason.

The only way out is to simply follow Jesus, not our man-made forms of Him. What do you think?
And be blessed.