Itching Ears

I hear about a lot of people who are breaking away from the traditional idea of church. Bono, for example, doesn't really agree with sticking with one church, but instead drifts around and takes his own spiritual journey. That doesn't make him a bad person, and of course "the church" is certainly more than one building, congregation, or denomination. However, this is another side-effect of over-personalizing faith. Faith is consistently referred to as a personal or private matter. Jesus (and any Christian who has ever read the Bible) should tell you that faith is anything but private.

People everywhere are beginning to tune-in to t.v. preachers, online sermons, and do anything they can to stay out of a church building. What's wrong with that? They are hearing the Gospel aren't they? Yes, and that's certainly good, but what is the church for? The church isn't only to hear the Gospel is it?

One of the most important functions of the church is to be a community of faith, and one of the most important functions of community is accountability. I understand that I sound negative quite often, but almost anyone would agree that accountability is a problem everywhere. It isn't spoken about enough, isn't encouraged as strongly as it should be, and it isn't practiced the way it has to be.

Accountability is critical, absolutely vital to the church. Read Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, Hebrews 3:13, and Hebrews 10:25. Our purpose in to encourage, strengthen, and build up. How can you build somebody up if their foundation is crumbling already? We want to ignore other people's flaws because we are afraid to hurt feelings, to push them away, or bring them down further. Or is it because we know we would have to come face-to-face with our own shortcomings?

Accountability is not: meeting at Starbucks every Tuesday and talking about how you both have a porn addiction and feeling bummed about it for five seconds. Accountability needs to be more painful than that. I have been blessed to have two friends who were willing to ask me how I was doing and what I was failing at. They have had a resounding effect on my life. I knew that I could tell either of them what I was struggling with, no matter how dark, and they would pull me up out of it. The pain was strong, but worth it for becoming more like Jesus.

James 5:16 is a bit overlooked in the Protestant church. We would prefer to just keep it between us and God. That is because we have it backwards. There is something more immediate and shameful about confessing your sins to other people; it involves a great deal of trust. We see that God is forgiving and we know that he won't tell anyone else, so we feel safer. But shouldn't we be more ashamed to tell the faithful, holy, and still-wrathful God that we have rebelled against him and put ourselves in his place? Regardless, it is important for us to confess our sins to one another. What's the problem, then?

2 Timothy 4:3-4 "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths." Is that not an exact description of some of our churches? When Joel Osteen is the preacher of the biggest church in our country, we have a problem. 

The truth is- we don't want the truth. That is obvious in the way we function day-to-day. Marriages fail, families crumble, churches die, Christians fizzle out, and the truth is suppressed because we don't want it. I don't want to hear that I am wrong, so you must be wrong. You don't know what I've been through, so how can you tell me that what I'm doing is wrong? You don't know how I grew up, who are you to judge? "Judge not, lest ye be judged!" We've become futile in our thinking and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie. 

What you want to hear is not usually what you need to hear. It's like lying on a calorie counter- you may have good looking stats (what you want to see), but still be getting fat (what you need to see). It does you no good to ignore reality. It all comes back to humility...you can't be held accountable if you are proud, and you can't be humble unless you realize the wickedness that we have all committed against God. If you needed to read this, don't ignore it. We need to expose our darkness and snitch on ourselves. Get to church and get accountable.

Beware of your itching ears, they will betray you. They will lead you off the narrow path. What do you want: to keep believing the load of bull you feed yourself to avoid having to make tough decisions, or do you want to live forever? You can keep the lies, I choose to live with my eyes open.