It's All About You, Lord

The times they are “a-changin’.” ~Bob Dylan

 

Does anyone remember that mind-numbing Christian fad derived from the “Prayer of Jabez” in the Bible?  This is the scripture verse that sparked the craze:

Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.  And God granted his request"

~1 Chronicles 4:10

Here’s the prosperity cult interpretation of this scripture:  God wants to abundantly bless you with prosperity, fame, influence, success.  He wants to enlarge your “tent pegs”.  Just keep saying the Jabez mantra over and over again and focus on YOU.  YOU, YOU, YOU.  I imagine Christians embracing some Eastern religion---everyone sitting Lotus style rocking back and forth in a rhythmic chanting frenzy. 

One can only cringe at what this must sound like to God Almighty.  It must resonate something like an opera singer warming up his vocal cords before a big show:

We all know Do, Re, Mi, right?  For some reason, they always stop on Mi and repeat:  Mi, Mi, Mi, Mi, Mi…

God must be hearing:  ME, ME, ME, ME, ME…

The Jabez book topped the best-seller list in the year 2000.  The year appears to be prophetic and wholly appropriate.  If there ever was a mantra for the New Milennium it would be:  Yes, It IS All About Me. 

Our societal philosophy now appears to be:  Whatever YOU think or say or believe is now deemed morally important and relevant---Nothing else.  What we have been slowly adopting in this culture is now exalted and confirmed in the religion of Human Secularism---YOU are the center of the Universe!  Hurray!  This frees you up to live a completely unfettered life making sure every one of your waking moments inures to your personal whims, desires or bent.  No more hypocritical and hateful religious people to contend with—be “FREE”!  Be yourself.  All the commercials reinforce this philosophy in one way or another.  Hollywood certainly promotes this lifestyle and assumption blatantly.  There’s one little, tiny detail that the Religion of Human Secularism leaves out.  While you are out there “being true to yourself” so is everyone else!  That’s a good thing, right?  Umm…Right?

Unfortunately, we are repeating a failing national cycle today in the United States as a “type and shadow” of the Jewish historical nation.  Today, we feed our incessant spiritual hunger with the covenants of human secularism whose one and only commandment is “To thine own self be true”. And yet….even Human Secularists almost perversely understand that we need to replace the 10 commandments with something, amen?     This is just another version of saying “Do What Thou Wilt”.  Do you know where this quote is found?  In the Occultic “Book of the Law” written by Satanist Aleister Crowley.  Welcome to society’s new “bible.”

The American Christian Church has also apparently adopted this self-centered thinking through cultural osmosis. Joel Osteen boasts 65,000 church attending devotees with book titles like:

Your Best Life Now

Every Day a Friday

Become a Better You

There is one overriding theme here…YOU, YOU, YOU! 

If you want to have a real eye opening revelation—take each of these book titles and picture Jesus saying them:

Hey disciples:  Your best life starts now! (10 were martyred and 1 died in exile)

Let’s live like every day is Friday--TGIF!  (As in crucifixion day???)

Judas---you need to become a better you! (Really?)

This current life is like a wisp of smoke in comparison to eternity.  The problem with the Christian Church is that they are HEAVILY invested in their Earthly fame and fortune.  This is why all the lukewarm, vomit-inducing Pop culture Pastors vie with each other for the top of the Best Sellers list. 

I’m sure social media has had something to do with this.  Everyone has the false notion that they are starring in their own reality TV show.  Narcissism is alive and well on FaceBook as hordes of people think others are waiting breathlessly to hear about their latest banal activity.  The American Church is one of the biggest perpetrators of this “Kardashian Christianity”.   

Yet, in the Bible, Jesus only outlines a life of self sacrifice, not thinking too highly of oneself, becoming a servant, picking up His cross, DYING TO SELF.

We now have a President that perfectly mirrors the “It’s all about ME” attitude.  He sells his venom to the mesmerized crowds.  Few even blink an eye.  His philosophy doesn’t shock and outrage the majority of Americans.  We understand him--His shorthand.  He is Us, We are him.  We are always hungry for more, more, more.  Hell is depicted as a bottomless pit that is never satisfied:

Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.

~Proverbs 27:20

This is the logical outgrowth of the Human Secularist movement come to complete fruition.  It has given birth to its “Messiah” and the result is hideous…A cannibalistic society that feeds upon itself.     

“Sure, sure,” you might say.  “You sound like the old cranky Church lady on Saturday Night Live; the same type of person who said Elvis’ hip shaking was lewd in the 1950’s.” 

Please hear me out:  Close your eyes and do a short mental exercise with me.  Imagine your grandparents or simply another American who is no longer alive since the year 2000 or so.  Start explaining to them:  the 9/11 tragedy, the horrors of the Gosnell late-term abortion clinic, the Newtown school shooting, the Cleveland bondage and captivity sex abductions.  Tell them that Christian employers must now aid and abet murder by supplying abortion pills to their employees.  Explain the latest obsession with gender neutrality, marriage redefinition, and mainstream sado-masochism books.  Show them the statistics on rampant child pornography, infant rape and sex trafficking of children—both of which are now serious and growing problems within the U.S.

My grandparents would think they were glimpsing the portals of Hell. 

Perhaps they would be correct.

   

The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.

~Song of Solomon 2:12

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

~Thomas Paine