Buffet Line Christianity updated

If you have children you know the drill. Kids don’t like anything you try to feed them. They just want to eat McNuggets, french-fries and a shake.

Even a good meal of steak, twice baked potatoes, creamed brussels sprouts, mushroom gravy, crusty warmed rolls and a 5 green salad with balsamic vinegar will be rejected for the old familiar.

Chicken McNuggets, fries and a shake.

Christianity today is much like that. People want to pick and choose. They like this but don’t like that. They want to tell God what to serve; and if they don’t like the taste or if it’s unfamiliar or strange they shun it for the familiar and bland.

The Book of Hebrews addresses this. The writer says, “by now you should be eating the meat of the word but you are stuck on milk. Grow up and start partaking of the real thing.” Gene's Revised Version

So, 50 year old baby Christians sit suckling when God is calling them deeper. It s a crime. They think they are mature Christians for 50 years when the truth is they are 1 year old baby Christians 50 times.

Jesus calls his disciples together for the last supper. He breaks bread, hands it around and says, “Take and Eat, this is my Body”.

Today we would have some CHINOs (Christians in name only) saying “I don’t like bread, I’m full, I want an apple instead.” Like little kids.

Jesus takes the Cup, he hands it around and says, “Drink ye ALL of it, this is my blood given and shed for you for the remission of sin”

Today in many churches some would say, “No thanks, just drank of something else, I’m not that thirsty”.

When Jesus said, Drink ye ALL of it, there is no real difference if you interpret that verse, drink ye all of it, (Every One of You) or (Consume the whole thing). The principle is the same. You don’t have a choice. When the command comes down it is to be acted on without waffling. Christianity is not a buffet lunch.

So the question I was prompted to ask this morning by Nancy Minor is this: Have YOU drunk ALL of it? Are you willing to drink all of it? Or are you treating the goodness and grace of God like a buffet line, picking and choosing what you want to drink or eat leaving the rest behind.

• Do we forgive, really?
• Do we comprehend what our Redemption really means and what it cost?
• Do we act as if we were full citizens of heaven here on earth, do we live in the fullness of hope and reality in “On earth as it is in heaven” here and now?
• Do we live in the relationship with Jesus alive and renewed every day?
• Have we really drank of the cup deeply, all?
• Do we really hear the call of the deep calling unto deep?
  

We were intended to be set apart from the world. To be HOLY. Different. Not nice little Christians just trying to get along and not make a scene. If you are Holy you will make a scene or you aren’t really following in the footsteps of Jesus, Paul or any of the other early Church Christ followers. You were called to be consecrated not a chameleon. Holy comes from the inside out, not external action hoping it works its way in. Who do we think we are kidding with all our religious rules and regulations.

Our destiny was to be among those identified with his divine power. We are to belong to God and all that is Him and His. Sound, whole, happy, belonging to or coming from God. Nothing broken, nothing missing. Our minds purified, renewed and under control of the Holy Spirit. Shedding the sin sickness that resides rises up in our flesh as we are growing from glory to glory.

Then, there is drinking all of it which sometimes means there is sorrow in the way. That sorrow is not the focus, but the JOY set before us as it was before Jesus; that alone allows us to endure in victory. We enter the sorrow when we weep over a death, doubt, unbelief, fear, those in darkness, those deceived, souls lost and headed for hell. None of us are excused. He said, "Drink ye all of it." That requires something of each of us. But there is JOY just ahead if we faint not.

When I was 8 years old we went to see my godparents. Ferd Schmall. Momma Schmall had boiled some eggs. They wanted to know if I wanted an egg. I said ok. When it was peeled the egg yoke was green. They get that way. I didn’t want to eat it. It seemed strange. Momma Schmall cried. She had laid something before me and I rejected it. She showed me in that moment the heart of Jesus.

Like that steak dinner I described earlier, Jesus grieves when he sees his people pick and choose what he died for and what the Father sent for our comfort. I believe the great apostasy in the Church of Jesus in America today is a general rejection of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit being poured out around the world. The American Church is saying, “We want comfortable food. We don’t want steak. It seems strange. We never ate steak before.”

Jesus went back to the Father's side so that the Holy Spirit could come and live in his people with his comforts by manifesting Himself in Healing, Supernatural Miracles, Supernatural Knowledge, Prophecy, Speaking in other Tongues, Interpretation of Tongues, Supernatural Words of Wisdom, Extraordinary Faith, and Spiritual Discernment.

Much of the traditional religious church rejects these things or picks and chooses what they want to embrace from the spiritual meal set before them. The come up with all kinds of strange unbiblical doctrines like "the gifts are not for today? " That’s funny; I experienced them just this morning. So did most of Christendom around the globe. Only in the western wasted Christian world do we even engage in this heresy of buffet Christianity. People in Africa, South American and China are much more hungry than we are and clean the spiritual plate with gusto. We are fat and lazy.

We claim we want all of Jesus but we are picky eaters. No steak for them. No sir. “Chicken McNuggets, Fries and a Shake. Now that’s my kind of Christianity. My father ate McNuggets, My grandfather ate McNuggets and we got along fine. We don’t need steak. I'm not sure we even need to eat steak. Others can eat steak if they want to but not us.” BUNK! You need everything Jesus provided for life. There’s so much more and you are ignoring it or throwing it away.

And like Momma Schmall, Jesus looks at those who claim his name and is heartbroken as they reject His gift. He said Drink ye ALL of it, and we say either NOT ME or NOT ALL.

Shame on us! God, save the Church in America before its too late. I fear it may be too late for most of the church in America.