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I did not come to know Christ for this.

written by Michael McBane

I was shown some things in the past days that I think many who read my thoughts may appreciate. I may repeat some points but my repetition is to drive some things deep so they don’t slip away. If you have ever seen the movie, “Cool Hand Luke” you know the famous line, “what we have here is a failure to communicate.” If I may take some liberty to express my view of the story. Luke is sentenced to prison in the deep south for a crime that was brought on by sorrow and boredom. He is caught with in a system but he will not be trapped or enclosed by it. He longs for something that burns deep within him. Some would say ol Luke is on default and is disenfranchised. Not so I like the spark in his eye that is from some far off place that not only calls to him but others. Today I am going to ask that we see application to what we call church in this story. I am not speaking of the people but the framework that encloses many who long for something but this longing often dies within something so repetitious and contained. A something, a place where the isolation of the box is meant to suffocate the creative cry within your soul and to reduce any thought of running out beyond the fence to find something within your heart. Comply son comply. As you know Luke is breaking out over and over and sent to the box over and over, and some think he is real cool and others wish he would leave well enough alone. And the warden pastor tells Luke, that we have a failure to communicate and seeks to break Luke into conformity. He says, son what is the matter, you have a bed, a garden and if you just obey everything will be okay. But Luke would rather die. Is he just rebellious??? I don’t see that. Finally Luke breaks out again and we find him sitting in an abandoned church and the warden shows up out side with his marksmen. Luke gets down on his knees and bears his heart before the Father, and then walks up to the broken church window and proclaims, “You see what we have here is a failure to communicate. And he is shot dead. He is free. You see my heart is burdened to see that we rightly discern the whole body and that each part begins to come alive. My heart yearns to see each part function without bondage. And there are some inclinations within the frame work of much that will never allow this. It may proclaim it but it cannot allow it unless it is reduced to allowing God to build it without bricks and mortar. It cannot be micro managed. I am not an anarchist nor do I think everything in Christianity should be some spontaneous free fall. God does function in order, and He does prescribe the need for those who assemble the parts, call it making disciples. But until Christ is revealed. There must be a call to maturity. A call that demands that we do not do the things that reduce the potential of the revealing of God on this earth ...among us. Do we reflect Christ? If not and I think presently we do not as we think we might. we should be groaning in deep sorrow. And ask God, certainly this lack is not because You have not given to us the means. No it is because we continue to build idols after our own image not yours. I do not want to delay His revealing. I want to see Him as He comes today and tomorrow. I see the thread of eternity from the beginning to forever. So I do not think if I only was in heaven. I do not believe we are to be swift away before the time of tribulation. Which is why I cry, Oh God may Your kingdom come here, now on this earth, in my life, in all things, my body, my mind my actions as it is in heaven. Invade me with a great divine exchange. Let not Your death be in vain. I want the Christ within me to be alive!!!! I heard a story in a church on Sunday about a man who had been asked to pastor a church that has been crying out for revival. He came on board and the Holy Spirit began to answer prayers. The Holy Spirit began to drawn the outcasts in, the Lukes who yearned for something so deep. But the members had their comfort zones disturbed. and told the new pastor as much. This was not what he was hired for. But God continued to draw them in because this pastor had the heart of God and thus the ear of the Father. The comfort zone wreckers continued to come. The pastor was fired. As I heard that my spirit was distressed and I knew in any other setting I would have cried out in travail but I was forced to pull it in and contain such. They had a schedule to keep 11:48 the teaching had to end according to the pre determined agenda. God only had so much time to do business because according to church studies people don’t stay attentive for more then so many minutes. They don’t read anything that makes them think so write only in bullets and teach them to be echos. Goal, two to three services that equip. But how can we even think that this can vaguely equip anyone to reveal Christ. Have you been so long with me that You cannot feed them, that you tell me how much time I have. Some folks enjoy chasing their tails, well maybe they don’t enjoy it but they have acclimated to this pattern agin to going around the mountain and they have done it so long that they resolve to make this the identity of God on this earth for them. Perhaps saying, this is just enough, I mean this is earth we have to dumb this thing down Michael. If I remember the story correctly, Moses walked around for forty years and it was not until he stopped and turned aside...stopped and turned aside. He then saw the bush burning. God was there but he was walking right past Him over and over. Often I hear folks express,I am praying about this possibility. And the Lord has made the answer clear and set it before them. But they pray and continue in the patterns of comfort and trained response. And the suddenly has shrunk in its possibility that had opened before them. I think to myself, for forty years you have been praying, what are you looking for? Somethings are evident, the seasons are changing it is time to stop reinventing the wheel and calling it something new and fresh when in truth the Emperor is walking around naked. I ask, are we walking right past God? I was told by someone, seems like your on a treadmill why don’t you get off and move. I thought have I been reduced to less then I want? then what I have been created for?Yes. I have not come to Jesus to live like this. So my house hold is crying out free us to live in the shadow of Your steps for our life, Oh God. One thing I have been walking past is the love of God. He said to me, please stop serving and let me love you. I was confronted and held in the arms of God. See I was created to be loved by God to walk with Him in the cool of the day, to commune with Him in all things. To find my sustenance, my substance, in Him. Anything less drives me crazy. Everything flows from this embrace. Not the idea of such encounter but the reality and the longevity of such. Many years ago one of my spiritual fathers sat me down and had a very frank but insightful and building conversation of instruction with me. One of the things he told me was this: Michael, you have been through so much in your short life, you have stepped into so much religious dung that you don't even have to get of of your car in the parking lot to smell it, you know it before the door opens. I am extra spiritually sensitive presently as I have pulled away from much in recent weeks. I had to mow the lawn this morning and often these are times when God will stir me up. I will hear Him, see HIm and at times be shown things practically that have application spiritually. So as I am mowing I begin to repeat to myself, I did not become a follower of Christ for this, there is more. This began to swell within my spirit. I could feel it building within me. I saw that I was on a treadmill. Within certain things in my life. So when I finished I sat down in a chair and drifted into God’s stirring more. I looked down and see that I had stepped in dog dung. I thought where was this? I would not have seen this had it not gone over and up the side of my shoe. I would have walked it into the house. This troubled me. I then saw it was covered in leaves. So what did I see and hear in this. I was quickly reminded of what my mentor had spoken to me years ago. But I saw how I had been duped and it was time to step away from some things that appeared good but my walk could not go there. There were some things that I could not allow in my house to grow and I was graced to see this before I did so. Sometimes the dung is covered up but its still there. But I want to clarify this because Jesus said to His disciples to not focus on those who did not walk as they did for they to were proclaiming the KIngdom. I must walk in that freedom in that persuasion in that love and grace. I have always been able to do so. I ask that that grace would remain. But I must go, I must follow Him. It may mean I walk away from everything? At least that must be an option. Where is my gain, in Christ alone. I have tasted something and I miss its nourishment. I did not come to Christ for what I know presently. This morning I woke to see the sun shining over a cloud that cast its moving shadow over a golden wheat field.