what time is it?

I know every Christian blogger has probably been all over this, but I want to take a big step back.

MSNBC published an article on the "blasphemy challenge." My first thought was probably the same as yours, and I started brainstorming about the most effective counter-strike. They don't care, though, and it wouldn't help anyone anyway. There are believers on YouTube posting responses, but even if it became a big, centralized campaign like the "B.C." (ironic) it still wouldn't catch the attention of the liberal American media giant.

Then there's this kind of stuff. This is Jay Bakker, son of former evangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. At first, Jay's little project, "Revolution Church," sounds like a good thing. I agree that there are entire segments of society that the Church as a whole rejects based on appearance and/or lifestyle choices. I agree that someone needs to get out there and tell them about God, but as you read you wonder which god they're hearing about. Jay unknowingly sums it all up when he states, "Pharisees can have Mohawks too." You're a Pharisee alright, man.

1 Corinthians 9:19-23//For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.

Corey Russell's latest CD, Ancient Paths, features one track by a man named Allen Hood. True to the theme of the album, Allen's preaching on the end of the age, and at one point says, "The time of your ministry is over." It's too close, too desperate, too short, too important to be thinking about my preaching engagements for 07, where I'm going on the annual missions's trip, how many times my name will appear in print, or what kind of status I me mine is going to attain in my local church this year.

Do I know Him? Am I ready to stand in faith while the worst of it is crashing down around me, and am I ready to bring others to Him in the midst of it? Am I living on the watchtower or visiting from time to time? Do I live, day to day, to see His glory manifest in the earth or my own? Have I given up the deep recesses of my heart?

This thing - this time, this age, - is too big for me and it's too big for you. We need to look to Him and His plans like never before and fall in line.