08 October 2023
There is a biblical ideal for living on this earth.
It would mean ditching civilization, living off the grid in a rural area, using whatever housing best fits the climate and terrain, and raising your own food. Alternatively, if the conditions call for it, your household would be nomadic over a range of territory, foraging for food. The people would be together in an extended family household under a tribal feudal covenant. In short, you would live in total trust for God to provide, and total serenity if He does not.
Precious few could even come close to that. That it is wholly unlikely to happen is not the point. The reasons don't really matter. The point is that we are called to approach the ideal however possible within our situations.
The idea is to break away from the social expectations of a society and culture that does not know the Lord and His ways. Nothing in the divine calling of the Kingdom of Heaven requires any worldly property at all. The only reason we even bother is because our specific mission in Christ may have use for certain physical items as tools for portraying His glory to the world around us.
You don't need a job, car, house, etc. You might have use for them, but you dare not let them own you. If they get in the way of serving Him, you let them all go. We are just visitors here, traveling through whatever context we encounter.
The idea that you must have a family and provide for them is simply not there in the fundamental calling of Christ. You do need all of that to build and maintain a civilization and human nation, but that's not what Christ calls us to do. We simply do not have any such obligation or duty. The whole world could go to hell if it comes to that; it's not our problem. Our human existence itself is not even important.
Now, should the Lord direct you to marry and raise a family, there are some requirements in His Word about how to deal with that situation. You should try to instill your otherworldly values in your family, and part of that is not getting hung up on typical cultural expectations. This one thing is where the vast majority of the Elect fail. The Covenant demands so very much more than folks are willing to embrace. The excuses don't matter; no one is doing this on any noticeable scale.
Instead, we have millions of church folks mimicking the middle-class materialistic values of the Enlightenment and calling it "holiness". Church kids grow up with virtually no distinguishing traits that mark them as Covenant believers, aside from a thin veneer of rule-following -- maybe. Have you ever encountered anyone under 18 who knows that this world is just a mirage?
If you love your children, they will be nothing like the kids they encounter every day. Instead of letting the common culture shape them, you'll ensure they are raised away from all of that, even as they are warned about the siren's call they will face. You will steel their characters against the temptations of this world. Do they understand that America is downright pagan and nasty?
I don't hate typical Americans; I pity them. The vast majority of God's Elect have no idea what He requires, nor do they have any concept for what He has promised. It's one thing to use the trappings of our society for the Lord's glory. It's another thing altogether to let those things own you. It's just too easy to get off track, to fall for mental tricks that sanctify materialism as somehow obedience to the Lord. I know how that works, because I struggle with that evil spirit every day.
Do you understand that the call to prepare for tribulation is not just a warning, but a promise from God? The Psalms tell us that, when wickedness perishes, the saints shout for joy. Does anyone doubt that our culture is wickedness? Is not America already trying to demote Sodom and Gomorrah to second place behind us in moral depravity? And if it means taking our lives as collateral damage, we still celebrate.
It's one thing to assent to the doctrines of biblical mysticism; it's another thing altogether to walk in them. Contemplate where the boundaries are. At what point does guarding God's material blessings become worshiping Mammon? Those boundaries are not something we can reduce to mere rules. They are invisible to the intellect, but your heart can recognize them. This requires that you let your heart rule as a matter of reflex, and that you keep your mind in subjection to the Spirit of God.
You cannot trust your flesh to know, much less report honestly, where those boundaries are.
Comments
Fun and Prophet
A beginning now might be to take the risk of guiding children away from "going to college." I'm not a parent, but, thinking about it, that would require a big gulp. And yet is obvious. With high stakes.
Closer to my own timid home, worrying and negative imagining about any aspect of the future needs to be verboten. Sufficient unto the day...
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