Blind Leading the Blind - Ex. 7-8 & Matt. 15:1-20

So Pharaoh continues to have a hard heart and God (through Moses, Aaron, and plagues) continues to soften him. I can't imagine the mixture of faith and fear that Moses and Aaron must've had as they continued to obey God and confront Pharaoh only to have him respond negatively. God forewarned them that He would harden Pharaoh's heart, but still....all the while the Israelites and Pharaoh are getting more and more aggravated with Moses. It's not easy to go against the flow...

Which brings us to the story in Matthew 15 where Jesus, in His usual manner, confronts the religious leaders telling them that they were hypocrites and that they honored God with their lips but not with their hearts. Hilariously His disciples take Jesus aside and say, "Do you realize that you offended the Pharisees?" Ha Ha Ha! Um....yeah, He understood. He simply didn't care because He was too into "tickling ears" but rather transforming hearts.

Which in turn brings me to something I'd like to rant about for a minute. I've been reading an awesome book called "The Divine Conspiracy" by Dallas Willard and it is really changing (or at least reaffirming) my thoughts on being a follower of Christ and making disciples. Dallas Willard, much like Jesus (although much more politically correct) refers to our current church leaders as "blind leading the blind." At least that's how I would summarize his thoughts. For the first half of the book, he teaches on the Sermon on the Mount, then in the second half of the book he teaches about how to truly become a student of Jesus and how to help others truly study and live out that life. The goal he says, is to live your life as Jesus would if He were living your life. Not WWJD, rather how can I do what Jesus would've done in my place, with my gifts, abilities, relationships, etc.

The first thing we have to do is to really decide to be a student of Jesus. I know that's no earth-shattering news. But how many people do you know whose number one priority is studying and living out the Jesus lifestyle? I can count them on one hand. So with regard to ourselves and of course others, who we might hope to make disciples of, we first need to identify what it is that undergirds all of our decisions. Once we have done that (which I don't believe is an easy or a quick process) we must get rid of that and replace it with Jesus. If all this sounds simple, let me just repeat what Mr. Willard says (and I totally agree with): -my paraphrase- Around 1300 years ago the church started making converts in place of disciples and that is what the church on the whole is in the business of doing today. So we make converts in hopes that they become disciples. When in reality these "converts" are only converted to church, not to truly studying and following Christ. So we may only have a handful, if that, of disciples in our churches.

Anyway, I'm obviously rambling, so I'll spare you. But I look forward to more of what God has to say to me and where He leads with these thoughts...they just may save (or ruin, haha) my relationship to the church.

I intend to more truly study and follow Christ.