There is always more to the Most High

Being sympathetic to the emerging/emergent (I'm not sure which is what) church has become one of my little things, recently. I became tired of listening to the attacks against the community a long time ago, when thought it better to have their view in line with hundreds of years of tradition instead of allowing things to change their mind. I don't say this because I agree with everything this "new" church is saying, most of I think is ridiculous, but they are trying to understand God, and seeking Him with Jesus in mind, rather than a general "sincere faith" so many want to cling to.

Sympathetic has to be the right word, because they are trying to be heard so they can find out how people respond, but they are being trampled by BIG names, like John Piper and Mark Driscoll, who made a decision that they weren't doing things right, and ex-communicated them from their social network. Of course I'm making sweeping generalisations so you can hear my point, instead of trying to keep things inoffensive to some readers.

Most evangelical Christians, I've noticed, have two major characteristics: first, they are obsessed with the death of Jesus in such a profound way, even though He did rise from the dead (which is the important bit of the growth of the church), and they like to claim Jesus enjoyed the cross, when Hebrews definitely says He "endured the cross for the joy set forth before Him" and that joy before Him wasn't the cross it was us. Secondly, if they can't have ideas of God boxed up into nice sections (although these will sound quite silly), like omnipresence, omnipotence, the trinity, holiness, glorious-ness, then they get a bit upset. Doctrines seem to be very important.

Israel, after much winging and moaning, finally enter the promised land, or before that are freed into the wilderness, or before that are miraculously provided for by a brother who happens to be prime minister of Egypt, or before that have a family miraculously born out of a barren woman. They live their whole national life as a life full of experiences of God. They live in faith of that. Wandering through the wilderness they have food fall out of the sky every day for 40 years, and have a pillar of smoke during the day to shade them from the hot hot Egyptian sun, and have a pillar of fire by night to keep them warm in the cold cold Egyptian desert. They experience God entering the promised land, with miraculous victories over great people groups who worship foreign gods. They experience God in exile, when one man refuses to bow to anyone but YHWH and gets thrown to the lions, only to be casually asked the morning after "Did your God save you?" and He had.

God interferes with Israel at various stages of their disobedience, but it is because God wants them to experience Him. His main interference is through prophets, and that voice crying out is only that powerful message that God cares far more than you know, and will use His people to speak to His people. Even in the 400 years of silence from the end of Malachi to the arrival of John the Baptist, there was an expectation of God breaking in, because 400 years is the longest God has ever gone with being silent. By the time Jesus had done what He'd come to do, ascended into glory, and left His Spirit to empower His New People to do greater things that He had done, there are more and more accounts of God being experienced, and that changing lives. With God, there is never a dull moment. Experiencing Him is something He is hungry for us to do, and He wants us to be pursuing Him to do great and mighty things.

The Psalms are filled of praise of the work God does on earth, in equal measure to the characteristic of God which aren't simply titles, but demonstrated among His people. The Israelites didn't have doctrine they had experience calling to mind the wonders of God. Why should we decide knowing about God is the real way to meet with Him? Isn't that the arrogance of man to say, "you've done enough, God, leave us to summarise You in our own words."?!

I'm hungry for, maybe even craving, some of this spiritual milk, this tasting of the goodness of Jesus in profound new ways in our churches. I get the feeling He wants to break in more powerfully than we ever allow when He meets with us in our meetings together. Community should be more than enjoying a personal comfort, it should be God turning lives around, making miracles an everyday occurrence, and seeing churches grow through the wonderment of this Great God: Jesus Christ.