Passive Christianity: Left Behind?

I will never be perfect.  I can try, as can we all, but there is only one who has ever been perfect.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that I should do more than just hear God’s word; I should really live it.  I should be an active rather than a passive Christian.

     I’m thinking of the character of Bruce Barnes from the Left Behind novels.  Here’s a guy who is a Christian, and believes in Christ, and yet is still left behind because he was not totally genuine.  He was lukewarm, like so many of us.  In the movie The Rapture, Mimi Rogers plays a character whose daughter has a dream that she’s in heaven.  She tells her mother, “I’m there, and Daddy’s there, too.”  When the mother asks her if she is with them, the daughter replies, “Yes, but only sort of.”

     I don’t want to be a “sort of.”  I don’t want to suffer the doubts of Roger’s character, or the come-uppance of the Bruce Barnes character, having the same kind of lukewarm existence they had that eventually separated them from God when Jesus returned.  When the rapture occurs, if it occurs in my lifetime, I don’t want to be the one left behind, saying “I should’ve been a better Christian.”

Life was filled with guns and war

And all of us got trampled on the floor

I wish we’d all been ready

The children died, the days grew cold

The peace of breath could buy a bag of gold

I wish we’d all been ready

And there’s no time to change your mind

The Son has come

And you’ve been left behind

A man and wife asleep in bed

She hears a noise and turns her head

He’s gone

I wish we’d all been ready

Two men walking up a hill

One disappears

And one left standing still

I wish we’d all been ready…

The Father spoke, the demons died

How could you have been so blind…

I hope we’ll all be ready

(You’ve been left behind)

     - “I Wish We’d All Been Ready

        DC Talk

- From my Journal, January 2000