Title:- Simple Yet Sumptuous!
Matthew 11:29
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Everyone knows that when Henry Ford first mass-produced his Model T Ford, you could have it any color you wanted provided it was black! Today of course, Mr. 'Monotone' Ford would not have been able to compete in this vast market place of color choice.Whenever I go down to the local supermarket it is not long before I become overwhelmed with the array of choice that is set before me. For me to be found perplexed in the aisle of most any shop nowadays is not unusual, as on average, each store has some 50,000 separate items to choose from! From the vast array of competing service providers and all their sumptuous socks in sizzling and saucy colours that the marketting mantra of the century is indeed found to be , ‘Competition afforded by choice.’
Churches both large and small have spotted this seeming need to provide ‘choice’ to seekers of spiritual truth and have unwittingly engaged themselves in that self same competition afforded by the lust for choice! So, on most weekends you will find churches offering services on Saturday and Sunday, Monday morning, various afternoons and most evenings, contemporary and traditional, long and short, dressed up, dressed down, smells bells and hope on a rope. I’m not knocking it; after all it is getting in the punters! After all, people expect choice and are coming to worship and to participate in the style of their choice on the day of their choice at the time of their choice. Indeed, it’s so needful now in Christendom to present such ‘spiritual’ choice, such ‘spiritual’ options that today, this ‘service choice’ has been re-presented to us as the ‘Christian Norm,’ even the cutting edge of postmodern evangelism! After all, look at all the choice in the availability of the multitude of protestant denominations, and hey, didn’t Paul say that he would become all things to all men if by any means he could win some, and by the way haven’t we got four different gospels with one message, you know four different flavors with a different emphasis for at least four different sets of audiences? Good grief isn’t it obvious, God is into choice!
Laying aside the honorable and dutiful question of which day of the week to gather as a body to adore God together and to minister to one another; laying aside the exceptionally cheap ‘mile wide and inch deep’ quality of such a present day presentation of spiritual ‘choice’; laying aside the market place competition set by postmodern day consumer Christianity; laying aside the subsequent ‘Wal-Marting’ of Christendom, we still come to another massive problem for the sheep of His pasture and that is, that although the postmodern spiritual punter may easily quench his natural curiosity, may easily sign up for his shopping reward card and get the nice little spiritual discount his truly unrepentant soul requires, the real sheep are left rotting on the hills and wasting away for lack of good nutrition. Such choosing, such foul presentation of choice, such pandering to the flesh, for that is what it is, has left in it’s wake an emaciated Christianity that now teeters and totters pathetically through the land. The spiritual punters have touched and tasted and are some are even satisfied with the tasteless drivel, as after all, it would appear that being a Christian is not as demanding as they thought it might be. However, the people of His pasture, are left both hungry and even starving.
Sheep you see, don’t want choice; they just want feeding the food that is fitted for their needs! True sheep just want to eat! Crispy or grilled, they just don’t care! They don’t want fries, and they don’t want coke with it and no, they apparently don’t want honey mustard either! Good grief they just want a burger in a bun! They just want food from a shepherd who is sprinkled with the anointing from on high and glows with the manifest presence of the Saviour. I tell you what: sheep will travel a thousand miles for such simple and sumptuous fare and you know what, they may even do it on a Sunday mate. Imagine that!
Listen:- “Stand in the ways and see, And ask for the old paths, where the good way is, And walk in it; Then you will find rest for your souls. Jeremiah 6:16
Pray:- Grant me O good Shepherd, a simplicity of life, a focus on the fundamentals and thenO my God, come quench my thirsty soul and feed me with the food allotted to me. Amen!
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