For the war against evil, God is recruiting heroes not bookkeepers.
The Church thinks in terms of bookkeeping and list making. The Church wants us to be bookkeepers who keep accurate lists of our sins in both kind and number (Akin). To the Church, life is a round of golf at the end of which we hand in our scorecards to God for his final judgement.
God, however, is not interested in the Church’s chickenshit (Wikipedia). He does not share the pathological obsession of the knuckleheads of Christianity with the red herrings of spit and polish (Matthew 23:27). God does not care whether our buttons are polished or our shoes are shined. God is too busy actively engaged waging war against evil.
In the war against evil, the line of scrimmage experienced a change of venue. Love drove evil out of heaven and cast it down into the Valley of Tears (Revelation 12:7-12) (Luke 10:18). Evil was evicted but not defeated. The war against evil was unfinished. Only the venue had shifted from up there to down here. The line of scrimmage had made its way into the Valley of Tears.
To carry the fight to the enemy, Jesus parachuted into the Valley of Tears. He did not invade the Valley of Tears at the head of a powerful army (Revelation 12:7-12) armed to the teeth. He infiltrated the Valley of Tears alone, riding a Cross, with no weapon but love. He infiltrated to recruit an army. He came to recruit an army of heroes from among the children of Adam and Eve to stand with him shoulder to shoulder, cheek to jowl, in the scrum at the line of scrimmage as comrade-in-arms fighting together against evil as part of a glorious band of sisters and brothers. He infiltrated the Valley of Tears to teach the children of Adam and Eve how to defeat evil. He brought from heaven to earth the technology that defeats evil (Luke 7:47). He demonstrated that the technology works by using it himself on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection. What a crazy daredevil this Jesus was! He hung from his Cross to teach us how to hang from our crosses. Despite the evil that we did to him, he clung to his love for us, held tight and refused to let go. Therefore, cling as Jesus clung to love, evil’s invincible foe. God's strategy in the war against evil is to smother evil with love. God's strategy is based on the principal that THE SEEDS OF EVIL DO NOT GROW IN THE SOIL OF LOVE. Love is toxic to evil. Love smothers evil as water smothers fire (Matthew 5:38-40). Love greases the pig. Love makes it impossible for evil to get a grip on you. Love is the firewall that quarantines the contagion of evil.
God wants heroes who can fight evil not bookkeepers who can recordkeep. God wants heroes who are willing to jump on the grenade of evil for their neighbors (Matthew 5:38-40). Jesus is recruiting and training an army of heroes from amongst humanity who can resist evil with love. When we resist evil with love, we help Jesus deliver the coup de grâce to the serpent and his fallen minions. It is a wartime army not a peacetime army. VICTORY AGAINST EVIL COMES THROUGH HEROES NOT BOOKKEEPERS. Forget about keeping the books.
JOIN THE SCRUM.
FIGHT THE WAR.
MOUNT THE CROSS.
DO NOT LET YOUR CROSSES MOUNT YOU.
Let your love smother evil as water smothers fire. Love is the energy that gives us the courage to jump on the grenade of evil for our neighbors. Love turns us into superman with the strength to deny ourselves, to pick up and carry our crosses (Matthew 16:24-25). Love is saving the world. In the process of saving the world, we save ourselves.
