“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

  - Matthew 5.16

Your learning should be visible to all, and not hidden like a candle under a bushel.

  - The Rule of Carthage, Irish, 7th century

Contemporary American Christians are the most Christian-educated generation of believers the world has ever known.

Or, at least, they ought to be.

Think about it: We have more sermons, Sunday school classes, Bible study groups, Christians schools and colleges, Bible curricula, books and DVDs, radio and television programs, blogs and newsletters, and assorted other educational paraphernalia and opportunities than – I’d just about bet – all previous generations of American Christians combined.

We have more people in classes, more students in seminaries, more churches and pastors, more Bibles, and more Bible study materials than all the cumulative generations who have gone before.

And yet, every year the American Church drifts further and further onto the margins of society, with less and less evidence that all our “learning” is amounting to anything like real discipleship.

Our numbers are declining; we have no real effective voice in the public square; we are not leading our neighbors to the Lord; all the sins and silly diversions of our unbelieving contemporaries cling as readily to us as to them; and we are caving in to pop culture and the entertainment mentality at an alarming rate.

If we’re learning anything Christian in all those Christian education arenas, it’s not showing. Not showing much, anyway.

And there are two reasons for this: First, we aren’t teaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, but another gospel, one that stresses forgiveness, going to heaven, and knowing that Jesus loves and accepts us just as we are.

That may be part of the Gospel, but it’s not the whole Gospel. And if we’re only learning part of the Gospel, then we’re not learning the Gospel at all, but only a gospel of “near Christianity.”

There is no incentive to change in the direction of holiness, to love God and our neighbors more urgently and consistently, or to devote every moment and activity of our lives to glorifying God.

Second, we aren’t teaching for real learning, learning that affects us soul and body, transforming us into the image of Jesus from glory to glory. Instead, our “learning” is only a kind of exercise in intellectual stimulation that is satisfied to ensure that the notes of the teacher or preacher get reproduced as our notes, without passing through the hearts or lives of either.

We’re educating ourselves mightily, but we’re educating ourselves into marginality.

And because of this, we’re setting-up our children and grandchildren for irrelevance, or worse.

Shouldn’t we demand more of those who teach us? And of ourselves as learners?

Psalm 25.4, 5 (Festal Song: “Revive Thy Work, O Lord”)
Make me to know Your ways, teach me Your paths, O Lord!
My Savior, all day long I wait and seek You in Your Word.

Lord, am I truly learning, learning so that my light shines in good works that bring glory to You?

“Near Christianity”?
Yes, sadly, many Christians today are not living the Gospel of the Kingdom, but a cheap substitute, based on cheap grace, which actually bars them from the Kingdom rather than births them into it. I can think of few things more urgent for Christians today than that we understand and embrace the Gospel of the Kingdom and encourage all our fellow believers to understand and embrace the true Gospel as well. If we, who presume to be followers of Christ, ever get this, we will put the brakes on our slide to the margins of society and be more consistent and outspoken in living and proclaiming Jesus as Savior and King.

If you’d like to learn more about serving Jesus as Savior and King, please consider ordering a copy of The Gospel of the Kingdom from our online store (click here). At only $5.95, this little book could change your life, helping you to make the Kingdom turn in a watershed way, and enabling you to realize more of the presence, promise, and power of the Kingdom of God in your everyday life. Order several copies and read it with some friends. The exercises and discussion questions will help you see whether you’re living “near Christianity” or the Gospel of the Kingdom that Jesus and the Apostles proclaimed.

Kingdom citizens and ambassadors: The Gospel of the Kingdom is your dossier and billet.

Psalms to Pray for Today and Tuesday
Today
Morning: Psalm 119.25-32; Psalm 17
Evening: Psalm 92

Tuesday
Morning: Psalm 119.33-40; Psalm 18
Evening: Psalm 93

T. M. Moore, Principal
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All Psalms for singing from The Ailbe Psalter. Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.