Back to the Future

"Come out from among them and be separate!" was a battle cry of the church I first knew and joined. We were DIFFERENT! It was painful sometimes as a kid growing up in a fellowship that seemed to live by strange and even alien guidelines.

What the second and third generations (mine included) often failed to grasp was that the driving force of the holiness people was the powerful ATTRACTION of a God who dominated all of life- who was Present in every facet of living. Left unattended the FLAME flickered, threatened to go out, and holy separation in many cases deteriorated into what appeared to be legalism-- and what actually in many cases was that ugly disease. Still, there was a core of life that burned, that would not go out.

Now our hope lies in a generation that is kindling that sacred FLAME again- talking about leaving the comfort zone-- about bringing God into every fact of living. We have been set free from legalism-- but maybe we need to rediscover the truth in the call "Come out from among them and be separate!" all over again!! Our zeal for God dare not stop when it begins to demand first place in every single area of our living!

Maybe the way we will end up in our quest for God will LOOK like legalism to others. It is impossible to have as our highest goal to be "cool" or at the leading edge of any human endeavor and at the same time tend the sacred FLAME of the Presence.

In Charles Wesley's words:

"O that in me THE SACRED FLAME
Might now begin to glow;
Burn up the dross of base desire
And make the mountains flow.

"REFINING FIRE go through my heart,
Illuminate my soul;
Scatter thy light to every part
And sanctify the whole."

He wrote it-- I pray it for myself. Amen