“If you accommodate others, you will be accommodating yourself”
Chinese Proverbs
(The Mayor helping emptying the dishwasher / Julie Cook / 2019)
Ok…so I’m still struggling between feeling better and being zapped of all energy…but that
didn’t seem to keep my mind from racing from thought to thought during the course of the
past week.
I’d see this or that irony or idiocy and would make a mental note that a
future post would be in order.
Then I’d feel the fervery chills again or the Mayor would be racing off willy nilly toward
something alluring, putting her life at risk, and those thoughts would quickly dissipate.
But the passing of a rural church’s sign last evening helped to jog my memory.
However, let’s back up a tad.
Let’s consider a word.
The word being–
Accommodating
A word that means a willingness to please: that of being helpful, obliging.
Obliging, in turn, meaning indulgent.
Indulgent then in turn meaning a willingness to allow excessive leniency.
I think we see where this is going…
It is going to the notion of making life, or that of another’s existence, as easy peasy as possible.
It is something our culture is honing to a high art form…
Making everything easy peasy…while offering leniency for all as we indulge everyone and anyone.
Matters not your desires nor choices…
Oh, no wait….it does matter…
It matters only if you are a Chrisitan, a Jew, a conservative or a moralistic individual…
because we simply cannot accommodate those who hold such mindsets…
But if you want anything outside the circle of a Judaeo /Christian mindset, we’ll accommodate you til
the cows come home.
And this thinking came from a drive last night when I passed by a sign outside of a church
that proclaimed “We Now Have Saturday Church”
At first look and read, that little advert seems great.
Saturday Church for those who can’t “make” Sunday Church.
But this seemingly benign offering got me thinking.
How much has The Church—each and every denomination of the Christian Church,
gone in order to accommodate the masses?
Praise rock bands to draw in the young.
Coffee house settings to draw in the casual laid back.
Video theatrics to show our cutting edge use of technology.
Gay clergy to make the fringe members feel accepted.
Preaching openness and love to show our all-embracing nature.
Removing the ideas of sin, hell or consequence from our actions because we are love and love only.
Gay marriages to express our inclusion.
Petitions to change the wording of the Bible to show we are progressive…
God as the God-dess.
On and on we go because the numbers show that the Church is losing.
It is losing to a deeply divisive yet progressive secular culture that
has no room for what Christianity has stood for over the past two thousand years.
It hasn’t helped that the clergy has almost singlehandedly cast a heavy
veil of mistrust…with many heinous acts of predation, across denominational lines,
leaving many of the faithful with deep wounds and now disgust for the Church as a whole.
So in desperation, The Church lets out all the stops.
Desperate to accommodate any and all…
just please don’t go…
please just come…
back…
And yet it is The Bridegroom who has never changed.
He, the Godhead, has remained the same since the creation of our existence…
He was before such and He will be long after such…
He will never change, be changed, bend, beg, accommodate or oblige.
He gave everything He could give on a fateful day of betrayal and death…
He offered redemption.
He offered hope.
But He will not bend nor will He be changed…
despite our bending over backward for anything and everything other than God.
God is not human, that he should lie,
not a human being, that he should change his mind.
Does he speak and then not act?
Does he promise and not fulfill?
Numbers 23:19
Awesome post. Accommodation has been part of the followers of God since the beginning. God gave man everything.. Paradise wasn’t good enough for mankind who wanted to be like God. The devil started the accommodating when he made Adam and Eve doubt God. Today it comes in different packaging, but it all comes down to the same truth. God never changes while we are never satisfied. I agree that it’s more evident today because the ugliness of sin is in our face everywhere you go. Instant communication – self gratification – all about me and no responsibility for our actions. Thank God for his consistency.
Truly so my friend, truly so!
Great post. Accommodations run amuck among us, and agreed, every denomination and the non-denominations also.
Sorry to hear that you have been under the weather. I thought I noticed a gap in posts, and I lifted up a prayer.
As for me, I am back to the hospital. They admitted my wife again. All of the medicine changes due to her first hospital stay has her kidney failure worsening. They say this time, it is only a 24 hour observation, so after I write this comment, I am back to the hospital to, as Jerry Clower said, “Go Getter”.
Thanks Mark and prayers for y’all as well— yes go getter!!!!!
Great picture to start off your keenly insightful post! I hope the Mayor doesn’t mind me calling her a Cutie Pie. Accommodation can be a great thing until it’s not as you point out. Accommodate too much and what’s left over? I’m afraid some Churches are finding out not very much.
Cutie pie works— that is until she figures out what being told “no” means to her schemes of exploration 😗
And whereas there will be pockets of the faithful who endure I fear mainstream churches will suffer gravely— granted I’m no prophesy expert but demise and capitulation in the end as the masses turn away from The Bride makes sense— but that won’t stop The Bridegroom praise God!
Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging.
“On and on we go because the numbers show that the Church is losing.” But no one can connect the dots to show that the farther we go to accommodate, the faster we lose. The big churches are basically large at the expense of little churches dying. As they die, a small percentage move to the big churches, others quit going. And God does nothing since He sees that man chooses to make their own plans for growth by accommodation. Accommodation comes at the expense of spiritual revival with hearts killing their man made idols and turn wholeheartedly to God. Sinners know fake when they see it. And if they choose to go, it is because it adds something new and exciting for a time. No real change necessary. Thanks again, Julie, for a heart stirring cry. The Mayor is so cute. Surely we will be “awakened” as a church before she and my little voters become of age. I pray so.
Thank you Oneta for your offering of soulful flavors with such moving words — you are the salt to my often loss for the right words— adding the needed seasoning of wisdom and keen observations. Indeed we lift our prayers Heavenward for our youngest loved ones— my little Mayor and the Sheriff to be that they may continue to seek His Grace and stand firm upon His word!!!
Hey it is an honor to pull with your team. I’ve never seen anything from you that I couldn’t add an amen,sic ’em, Julie. 😀
thanks Oneta
@Julie
Excellent post! Lovely picture!
I am afraid some pastors are confused about who measures their job performance. It ain’t the people in the church.
We should not accommodate practices that contradict the Bible. As Christians we know we need to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Then when unbelievers ask, we can give the reason for the hope that is in us. If an accommodation is not designed to bring us closer to God, then we are putting our own wants before what God wants from us.
How do we learn to love God? We read His Bible and follow His teachings. We walk with Him. Then we can tell others why we love the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Is this easy? No, but that is why Jesus gave us the church. Church is the place we go to help each other learn to walk with God. Church is where we can see the image of God revealed in other Christians. Church is where pastors lead the sheep in worship at the foot of the cross. Church is where sheep lead other sheep to salvation at the cross.
thank you, Tom—you know how I love that imagery of sheep and that of the Shepherd!
There are a few of us sheep who remain–may be more like that of a mule—stubborn to the current accommodations sweeping our culture…
Do not forget that as the Church seems at times to be fading in North America, it is growing rapidly in places like Africa. Christianity is not losing; it is simply relocating.
At the same time, what you say about accommodating is right on the mark. It reminds me of a sermon I heard about “the padded cross.” I was once taught that preachers were supposed to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Now the comfortable expect more comfort, and the afflicted are sent away to look for help elsewhere. J.
Excellent point as the church in Africa is flourishing— so such an excellent observation — not necessarily losing but merely moving!!
And what a great story about comfort and affliction—thank you for sharing your wonderful thoughts!!!
So sorry to hear that you’ve been sick😟😟 yet, somehow, you still manage to write a powerful assessment of today’s church and it’s response to culture. And sigh… it seems to me that a simpler response would be more effective…preaching and living out the Word of God… people crave authenticity and authentic Christianity will draw them… hope you are now feeling better, dear Julie!! 💜💜