Where do we go with this one?

Well, we can go a lot of places, but this time I want to try and understand my own personal motivations in having this blog and what motivates me to post what I post.

First off I like to tell you what I think does not motivate me.

I have no desire to prop up the denomination, or the church body to which the congregation that I belong is affiliated.

The ELCA is a denomination that has fallen upon hard times. It has done so willfully out of a sense of it’s own importance. It has replaced God’s Word with man’s words and deeds. It has decided to ignore God’s law and institute a policy of radical inclusiveness, where sin is not only condoned, but flaunted. In it’s quest to be liked by all, it has forgotten it’s first Love and has fallen hard for the fleeting glances of a world which cares nothing for them, or for their God.

The ELCA is not concerned with lifting high the cross of Christ, but lifting high the head of man. It is a feel good program whereby one can justify his own willful disobedience by merely throwing trinkets at the poor, or helping sinners feel comfortable with themselves.

In much of ELCA preaching, Christ rarely shows up as a just and righteous God, but rather a teacher of good deeds or example of a great life lived…that we might emulate Him.

Since the ELCA has pretty much abandoned God’s Word of law, it has pretty much turned itself into a law of it’s own making. A do-gooder organization that helps a lot of people with their secondary needs, but leaves them starving for what they really need…God’s unmitigated law to kill them off, and then God’s unmitigated promise of forgiveness to raise them again. 

Thanks be to God that they haven’t thrown out the liturgy and the sacraments yet. Christ is still there in those things.

I pray for a change of heart over at the ELCA whereby (by the grace of God) they might return to their first Love, and return to the mission of preaching the cross of Christ to sinners.  God may work a reformation at the ELCA. The libertine, 60’s mindset leadership will not live forever, and God may breathe fresh life into that organization, or He might just let them go on ‘playing church’ until He decides to turn out the lights.

That said, I realize that there are many good and faithful congregations and pastors within the ELCA that are more ‘centered’ (Christ centered).

I am not motivated by a desire to hold up any person, or written document, or scripture verse, or denomination (including the LCMS, WELS, or any others) whereby the efforts of man are put forth in a manner that leads one to believe that he can actually contribute, even in the slightest, to the goodness and righteousness that only God alone in Jesus Christ can provide. I believe preaching cooperation with God towards our sanctification is pouring gasoline on a fire. (We have discussed this recently a few posts ago…I already know your disagreements)

That said, I realize that there are many good and faithful congregations and pastors that are more ‘centered’ (Christ centered), within those denominations also.

 So I am not motivated by a desire to defend those that stand on scripture, but rather those that stand beneath it.

I am motivated (when I’m at my best) by a desire to preach Christ and Him crucified, to a world that needs Him… and Him alone.

I am motivated by a desire to take our efforts and place them in the proper arena, that of the neighbor and his needs.

I am motivated by a desire to kill.  To kill off the Old Adam or Eve that lives within us all, that Christ might raise the new man or woman.

I am motivated by a desire to have others know of the great freedom in Christ that has been bestowed upon me in my baptism. A baptism that did, and still does, exactly what it promised to do…kill me and raise me…forgive my sins and give me Christ.

I am motivated to let others know that Christ’s promises are true. When He says “my yoke is easy”…He means ‘easy’ for us…costly for Him. I believe an easy yoke is not a list of things that we ought be doing.

I am motivated by a desire to say to one and all, that Christ has done it all. There is not one thing left to do. Not one. “It is finished.”  I think He meant that quite literally. “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completetion.”

I know my motivations are tainted by sin. I also know that where Christ and His forgiveness of sins is proclaimed, He promises to show up, regardless of my motivations, and the mistakes I might make.

I pray that He will continue to show up, and to keep us in His faith.

    – Steve Martin

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