Half-Life Gospel

You know how Jesus taught us?
In Matthew 28:19-20?
actually didn't teach. The commissioned us--gave us our mission:

"All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
Go therefore and make disciples
of all the nations,
baptizing them
in the name of the Father
and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit,

teaching them to observe
all things that I have commanded you;
and lo,
I am with you always,
even to the end of the age."

Let's talk about a Half-life Gospel.
A half life is when some material that's radioactive--like nuclear waste--is, how do you say it? It's dying off.
Its becoming normal
--no longer dangerous--
no longer causing damage or change by its radiation.

We measure the material's half life by the amount of time it takes it to be half as "radioactive" as it was at full strength. The idea is that the material will be somewhat radioactive forever, but someday, in miniscule amounts.

When you want the material to be weaker--to not cause change or damage--a half-life is an important measure for safety.

So we have all kinds of stuff like that. You get it...

Well, the Gospel of Jesus is like Nuclear stuff, too. It "radiates" and "mutates" people, when they believe it. In Galatians it says (Gal.3"1-9) that when we believe the gospel, it opens the door to the Holy Spirit and Miracles.
...don't see much Holy Spirit and Miracle stuff around here, lately.

Come to think of it, I hear about it in China and Africa, a lot. I have people in some of those places. They're really excited. The dead are raised, even...

Why isn't that stuff more prevalent?
Could it be that we don't believe?
no, people are working their butts off on believing... Let's pass over that one...

maybe something has happened to our Gospel.

I think so.

I think we've neutered the Message.
We've cut it back a few half-lives over the last few generations, and contemporary efforts to re-contextualize and re-focus it have cut it back a bunch more... People believe what they're hearing--that's how we built the big Worship Warehouses in this city... Shee-ooot! There's another 10 million dollar travesty going up in Springdale. Ironically, its devoted to prayer and miracle healings (the kind that stopped happening sometime after the Luke 4 series got ignored and undone so thoroughly).

Here are 2 ways we have cut the life out of the Gospel. Pulled it's teeth. Declawed it. Neutered it... Half-lived it...

MADE DISCIPLES

TAUGHT TO OBSERVE

Seriously. Good stuff stillhappens, but there's not the intensity. We take the residual goodness and credit it as a sign of our obedience, justifying our activity and whatnot...

but boy o boy if you put your nose in that Book and take a look at what the Discipline of a Disciple is--the cross--and what it costs to follow Jesus...
...you'll reconsider your life. Are you really a Christian?

oh, you're offended that I question that? Bare knuckle challenge, brother/sister! Are you really a Christian? Have you got Biblical Religion? Do you walk inthe Spirit, or in your best understanding and Ideas?

Yes, the discipline of the disciple is INTENSE...

And if that's been presented to you every sunday morning from a flaming pulpit of "willingness-to suffer-and-forget-the-donation-levels-we-got-a-King-to-serve"

Yep, the church does need to work:
work on clarifying mission
discipline and the cost of discipleship
and the necessity of obedience...

It is half-life to teach "what Jesus said", again and again, every week, without a visit from the Master, Himself... Our gatherings are re-hash upon re-hash of "what Jesus said". We have the opportunity to learn what He said, every day.
Our gathering is a time to kiss Him in worship and prayer. So few churches even have a minute of silence, and almost none have any culture of crying out in prayer nad repentance... Preachers waste their bullets on Knowledge. The Spirit doesn't move. it's not dead, but its not alive.

its half-life.

constantly learning, never understanding...
having a form of godliness, but denying it's power!
Look at 2 peter 2
Look at Jude
Look at 1 Tim. 3
and pick your church
and your preacher carefully...

Looking at 2 peter 2, I'm shocked to see the description fitting to a "T" one of America's largest and most influential churches! Colorado? Ted? My dear friend Ted? who is loved, and may be rescued if he'll get honest with his perverted self and stop with the lying to himself? O how Jesus loves Ted, and his chances at the Kingdom are way up, as long as he gets honest about the whole thing... He was wrong. When he preached a Half-life Gospel. He should have been rebuking power, but was in bed with it in the end...
his greatest perversion has nothing to do with sex. it's about neutering the gospel adn shutting Jesus out of the Building, and worshipping personality and power.

2 Pet.2:excerpts

"But there were also false prophete among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.

And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed..."