Right Side Up

Today’s message was fun because in trying to find a good way to introduce the idea, I did some Googling:

Remember the clip of Fred Astaire dancing up the walls (and ceiling) of a room? The website I found showed me the title of the movie “ Royal Wedding” and also referenced other movies that featured scenes with rotating sets such as Poltergeist, The Fly and Inception. Like many of you, I grew up watching cartoon characters defy the law of gravity but these movies are getting better and better at making the apparent reality of gravity look more like an illusion than an irrefutable law.

This idea of illusion taking the place of law is at the center of the point I want to make. Last week the media reported how Pope Francis said that even an Atheist could make it into Heaven as long as he did good works. I’m not about to start a petition or anything but I don’t know what’s more bothersome; the idea that people are redefining what we've always known to be true OR the idea that they don’t seem to know any better. Well, The Word of God knows best and It doesn't back down from Its stance, even when that stance is unapologetically exclusive. It seems that we’re seeing the emergence of a new kind of “Christianity” – one where as long as you’re nice to people and aren't offensive in any way, then anything goes, “You’re IN”. To me it’s like changing all of the walls in a room; gluing furniture to the walls and wallpapering the ceiling so although everything has been shifted, it still appears normal.

Normal until God walks in the door….but First things first;

Here’s The Word;

Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Galatians 1:6-8 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

Okay, so now imagine you’ve grown accustomed to your “new” gravity and God walks in. Before you notice anything else, you notice HE is standing right side up, which means by association that you can’t possibly be. It reminds me of a verse in Scripture that I’ve really never seen this way until now – When we change the rules to fit us, we don’t realize how even though we may get very used to it, it doesn’t change the reality that God still has the last word. Even when we think ourselves “good” – the first thing we notice when God walks in the room;

Isaiah 6:5 Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.

Not saying that Isaiah assumed he was “worthy” but I think that seeing The King of Glory in His Splendor has a way of putting everything else in its proper orientation. In closing, I pray that we not only keep a firm footing in the Word of God, but that He would keep us careful and sensitive to anything that would begin to shift our sense of Spiritual gravity. I may look like I’m sitting on the ceiling clinging to the chandelier, but as this world goes topsy turvy with its relative “truth”, I’m trusting God to keep me right side up!



In Him,
Cros