Drama versus Consistency

I recently wrote about titles and their limitations, maybe even blockage to the message of the cross.

I want us to look at something different this time, yet with as destructive a harvest on victorious Christian living.

When was the last time you heard a testimony of someone who got saved as a child and walked with Christ all their life being paraded anywhere, especially on the media? Why is it that only the people who messed their lives big time get prime time to display their rottenness all in the name of a testimony? What would make a former robber, former prostitute, former conman a better witness than the person who never messed their life as they had hidden it in Christ?

Like I always quip could we be playing for the galleries instead of living for God’s glory? Could we be playing according to the rules of this world instead of the One we believe we represent? Could the script be drawn by the enemy of our souls? Or are we indirectly saying that there is no salvation for anyone who has not messed big-time? Does a testimony have to include rottenness to be one?

Could we be teaching (by implication) the doctrine that for someone to get saved they must have been visibly wicked; that someone who does not have the stench of the world is not really saved? Could we by the kinds of testimonies we celebrate be unconsciously telling our children that for them to have useful testimonies they must first mess up before getting saved?

Let me venture somewhere I am not qualified yet will comment anyway. What is a confessional? Is it not the place sinners go to their priest to have their sins forgiven?

Now suppose with me that for some time there is no confessionable sin one commits. Will they still go to the confessional? What if they increase their godliness quotient to the point that what their heart calls sin falls nowhere close to what normal sinners call sin, what will they then confess?

What I am implying is that the confessional is not much different from testimonies that amplify sin. This is because there is an expectation of sin for normalcy. The confessional is an accessory to sin as the amplification of gross sin in testimonies we love. And that is why I suspect that the evil one is the one behind these things.

It is very possible that the reason there is very little victorious living is because of the kinds of testimonies we listen to and love. It could even be that the reason our girls and women do not fear going to church barely dressed, if at all. If sin is the flower that adds attraction to a testimony, why not walk ready to sin even to the holy place? It will make the sin even more pronounced and the testimony more glorious.

Preachers have forgotten to preach against sin and holiness. Could this be a backlash, a reaction to these testimonies we are listening to? Why fight against sin when it is the one thing that will make my testimony bring in the crowds, even offerings?

For those who do not know me let me say that I believe with all my heart that Christ came to the world to save sinners, however gross the sin is. I am involved with ministry to the downs and outs and am not ashamed. Some ministers are sometimes uncomfortable with my involvement with some characters due to the nature of their depravity. And I know from the scriptures that God saves them. I have also seen God save some of them as completely as He has saved anyone else.

My problem is when their testimony is treated as more important as that of someone who got saved very young and has walked with Christ without faltering anywhere. It becomes very serious when that drama is used to overlook all these people who have been consistent in their faith all their lives and the drama is offered a ministry position in their spiritual infancy.

Let me explain. A secular musician who has sang to the world and the devil gets saved. They are immediately made worship leaders even before dealing with the spirits they were operating by. A criminal is made a pastor even before they get to understand what their new faith entails. A politician sees his fortunes sinking and decides to become a Christian and in a short time is made a trustee of a church. I am talking about things I have seen all too often that they have become the new normal when the scriptures would call them abominations.

What are we telling all these people we have been teaching to walk with God when we are bypassing them all the time with these people with dramatic conversions? Does it mean that God values conversion from depravity than He does a consistent walk with Him? Where in the scriptures do we see that?

I do not mean that the dramatically saved are not good witnesses. Paul’s was dramatic and achieved results. But he had to first be molded by Christ as we see in Galatians 1. Timothy was raised in faith from childhood and was not less effective due to that. In fact the Bible does not concentrate on the kind of pasts people came from but on their walk with God since they believed.

The church in Acts did not turn the world upside down because of the kind of testimonies they gave. They did it because of the kind of transformation Christ was able to accomplish in those who believed in Him. That was also the reason He did not employ a publicist or send those He transformed to advertise His services. His transformation was complete in itself.

The Bible is our text book for transformation. It should describe what a conversion is and who a convert is. It should show us what a conversion should do for us. Remember this?

Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. (Matthew 3: 8 - 10)

The validity of a conversion experience is proven by the consistency of a life lived in obedience to God’s revelation and not the sprouts of the spiritual touch. You realize that among the four soils in the parable the fastest sprouting dried almost immediately. No wonder Christ also said that our faith is known by the fruits people are eating from our spirituality and not the visibility of our lives or even testimonies. And this does not pour water on the important part a testimony plays in our Christianity, only that only one type of testimony dulls the edge of a victorious testimony.

But why do we love these testimonies?

I think the simplest reason could be that our own testimonies are so once upon a time that we are ashamed of them or that we have told them and retold them and worn them out completely. I am sure you are wondering what I mean. I mean we may have made a decision for Christ and even responded to His call so long ago but stopped walking with Him. We followed Him to the point that we sacrificed everything for Him but then stopped growing and fellowshipping with Him on reaching that milestone.

We give our testimonies of those times and not today. We recycle sermons of when God used to speak to us and preach them so well that even those who have heard the same sermon five times does not notice, unless they are spiritually inclined. Our lives, ministries and sermons are stale. That is why those testimonies are a diversion as they offer some freshness to all the stench of staleness we are emitting.

Of course we fear someone with a consistent testimony because it would display our staleness without creating any diversions. And that is why they must be overlooked and bypassed all the time because they are dangerous to our staleness.

How current is your testimony? How recent is your latest word from heaven?