BLINK AND STARE!

BLINK AND STARE!

(This is a “classic” devotional previously presented)

Gal 1:6

6 I marvel [I am surprised and astonished] that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:

Mark 14:33

33 And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy;

After more than four decades in the “preacher business” there are some things that simply cause me to blink and stare! The Bible uses a couple of terms to describe the condition of amazement. The first we see in Galatians chapter one and verse 6 where Paul stands blinking and staring because the Galatians had abandoned the truth of the gospel. It’s the “deer-in-the-headlights” condition. The idea from the original is to be “immobilized by disbelief.”

How in the world can a truly thinking person abandon salvation so freely given by grace and choose instead to adopt a plan of salvation that demands a cost impossible to pay?  We just blink and stare – and maybe toss in a crooked grin. Somewhere along the way these people had shut down their ability to reason!

I blink and stare that modern Christians have abandoned biblical Christianity for something that is a monstrous blend of Christianity, paganism and hedonism [the doctrine that pleasure is the chief good in life]. Some modern Christians have not abandoned grace but have embraced a belief system the Bible anticipated in the following verses.

Rom 6:1-2

6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?

2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

God did not save us from the slime pit so that we could continue playing in it without guilt! The whole idea just makes me blink and stare! How can someone who claims to be a believer continue to practice moral filthiness and indiscriminate promiscuity? How can a young lady bunk down with first one man and then another and still carry a two-ton Bible to Sunday school? Is this normal behavior? I am frozen in disbelief! I am amazed! I just blink and stare! How can a young man cheat on his wife, terrorize his children and still sit solemnly in church services week after week? I am frozen with disbelief! I just blink and stare!

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy. The full weight of the sins of all mankind of every age was being lowered onto Him and even the Son of God found it incredible! As scene after scene began to be played on his mind in speeding fast-forward his spirit found it hard to comprehend. His mind shouted “why?” and there was no reasonable answer. Blink and stare!

Modern Christianity has blended heaven and hell into an inedible soup – tasty but deadly! Each week in huge churches people stand, clap and “worship” a God they do not truly know. They praise a God they never intend to serve. They agree and say “amen” to godly principles they do not intend to obey or practice. Blink and stare! So, if you tell me something, or show me something, and I respond with just a blank stare and a crooked grin, you will perhaps have a clue as to what I am thinking.

Matt 15:8

8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.

Dear Lord! Help me to be honest in my dealings, pure in my practices and faithful in my worship. AMEN