 |
||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
||||||||||
|
The Holy Ghost Can't Be It May 4, 2009 By Kent d
Curry It's like earning
your dream degree from your dream university--for the sake of argument,
let's call it an MBA from Harvard. You've earned that degree from
Harvard and as you walk across that platform on a beautiful Sunday
afternoon to receive your diploma and the handshake from a distinguished
member of the faculty, your family and many others cheer your accomplishment.
You have done something few others have done, though many wish they
could. Except, on the
next Sunday, Harvard is rehosting the same MBA graduation ceremony
and encourages you to attend. Everyone in the audience is
also supposed to return to watch you re-graduate. The next week
is the same. And the next. Every Sunday, for the rest of your life,
you re-re-regraduate to the acclaim of a steadily aging (and less
enthusiastic) audience. Of course, it
doesn't work that way because you're supposed to do something with
that degree. The actual degree is supposed to be the launching point
into something greater--not the culmination of your life. Otherwise
it's worth little but bragging rights. And that won't be worth much
if no one with a Harvard MBA ever uses their degree in the real
world. Pentecostal Re-Graduates Too often it
seems, Pentecostals overfocus on people receiving the Holy Ghost,
as if that were the only possible goal. I've heard horror stories
of a district Youth Camp where every morning session, preached by
enthusiastic youth leaders from around the state, and every evening
service, preached by an enthusiastic evangelist, centered solely
upon every teen receiving the Holy Ghost. You only have to receive
the Holy Ghost once, not 10 times in a week. That's an extreme case,
but it exemplifies a mentality among us where our only goal seems
to make sure people get the Holy Ghost--even if they already have
the Holy Ghost. Then we seem to pat them on the back and let them
be, as if they've done all that's required of them. The reason students
seek a dream degree from a dream university is as much for the journey
after graduation as it is the journey through it. So it is spiritually.
The point isn't just receiving the Holy Ghost, but in the sharing
of it. Yet, too many times we don't train our Christian graduates
on what to do with their newly earned status; we just keep asking
them to walk across the graduation platform every Sunday, get refilled
with the Holy Ghost, everyone celebrate, and then do nothing noticeably
Christian until the next Sunday. It's time we
recognized that discipleship is the fourth step of salvation, the
area we're all supposed to master after we receive the Holy Ghost. I am not belittling
the need for a constant touch from God, nor the necessary step of
recleansing, I am questioning why we seem to only emphasize the
spiritual graduation ceremony instead of sending all of our graduates
into their respective callings, with sufficient training, to change
the world. The Great Commission implores us to “teach all
nations . . . Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you:” (Matthew 28:19-20), but we have been seduced
by the emotional highs of fantastic preaching to properly address
the drought of adequate teaching to guide saints toward daily Christian
excellence. Spiritual MBAs Earning a Harvard
MBA will create opportunities for you to get a job, but it will
not get you straight into the CEO's office--that takes a different
type of mindset. The reason most people want an MBA from Harvard
is for what others have done with it over the years. The most powerful
witnesses for an academic program are always the successful graduates,
because they prove the program works. Could it be that our churches
aren't growing because we don't have enough successful graduates
mastering the world outside our church buildings? To read the
last paragraph and offer your comments, click
here. Ó 2009, Kent
d Curry --------- Kent d Curry
is an executive editor of ninetyandnine.com.
|
|||||||||
