Keys to the Kingdom By Carolyn Tucker

Hotdogs or Steaks

As a little girl, I learned to entertain myself by “pretending.” I would pretend with my baby dolls, riding my bicycle, playing the piano on a chair, and pretend that I was a secretary. It’s alright to pretend when you’re young. But it’s really not OK to pretend when you’re an adult. For example, let’s pretend I invited you to my home for supper and I told you that we would have steaks. However, when we sat down at the table, I served hotdogs instead. I think you’d be shocked, disappointed, confused, and ready to kick my shins. So when you get your nerve up to mention that you were expecting steak, my response would be, “Oh, let’s just pretend the hotdog is a Filet Mignon.”

Living as a Christian pretender is serious business. We’re not fooling anybody when we’re not living out the walk we talk about. While reading in one of my personal journals from 2006, I came across this anonymous quote: “The partially-surrendered life may be Christian in spirit, but it is secular in practice. Of what earthly value is Christianity if it leaves no indelible mark on one’s lifestyle? It is of no value (in this life) to be Christian if you do not think Christianly — if you do not have a Christian life view.” We don’t want to get caught red-handed living as a Christian impersonator.

A genuine born-again Christian cannot stay the same. We’re either walking forward in a growing faith or backward in a worldly culture. Following Christ is a daily workout of killing the old lifestyle and being filled with the nature of God. (The last thing I want is to be filled with myself!) “By His divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know Him, the One who called us to Himself by means of His marvelous glory and excellence. And because of His glory and excellence, He has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share His divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires” (2 Peter 1:3,4 NLT).

No hotdog can fake it and make it. Pseudo Christians are pretenders which will fail miserably. Plus, they will discourage  and disillusion others from committing their life to Jesus. The watching unbeliever will likely say, “What’s the point of being a Christian? He doesn’t live any different from my other friends who don’t even profess to know Jesus.“ God desires undivided loyalty and genuine devotion from His children. Christ followers will have a desire to live a different lifestyle from the surrounding culture.

As believers study God’s Word, we can readily recognize the first signs of fakeness in ourselves and take corrective steps to eradicate it. The qualities of a bonafide representative for Christ are found in Matthew 5:3-12, known as The Beatitudes. Jesus wasn’t tip-toeing through the tulips when He also said, “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men” (Matthew 5:13 NKJV). Evidently it’s possible to lose our Christ-likeness and godly influence. Again, there’s no earthly value to being a Christian if we fail to be fully surrendered. The hard  truth of Jesus’ teaching should motivate all of us to take regular inventory of our heart, mindset, and lifestyle to ensure that we’re still wholeheartedly following in His steps.

The Key: Don’t pretend to be a steak if you’re really just a hotdog.

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40:28-31 NIV)

From stumbling to soaring, we have a choice to make.  We remember the stumbles, times we wish we could delete from our memories, times we needed to turn to the One who offers us the ability to soar and not tire out.  Times when we need to change our ways, but who, except for wet babies, likes change?                                                             

We dig our heels in and justify our decisions to continue doing what requires no soaring or running or even walking.  The couch becomes our safe place, and the television becomes our god.  Easy peasy.  Except it’s not the way God calls us to live.             

Isaiah reminds us that when it comes to change, the eagle has much to teach us.                     

Did you know that the eagle has the longest life-span among birds? It can live up to 70 years, but to reach this age, the eagle must make a hard decision. In its 40s, the eagle’s long and flexible talons no longer can grab prey, which serves as food. Its long, sharp beak becomes bent, and its aged, heavy wings, covered with feathers that have grown thick over the years, become stuck to its chest, making it difficult to fly.                        

The eagle is then left with only two options: die or go through a painful process of change, which lasts 150 days. The bird must fly to a mountain top and sit on its nest.  There it knocks its beak against a rock until the beak falls off. The eagle then will wait for a new beak to grow back, a beak used to pluck out its talons. When the new talons grow back, the eagle starts plucking out all the old feathers. After five months, the eagle takes a famous flight of rebirth and lives 30 more years.

Like the eagle, we cannot “stay right where we are” and call ourselves Christians.  God wants us to delete old memories, eliminate destructive (lazy?) habits, and soar like eagles. We just need to understand that faith does not come in one giant tsunami-like wave.  It is a step-by-step process which calls on us to move out of our comfort zone, to pluck out whatever keeps us from soaring.  We don’t have to wait until we believe it all, see it all or understand it all.  We just need to take the first step.

That’s what the Israelites did after they escaped Egypt and 40 years later, found themselves camped on the bank of the Jordan River.  Joshua 3 explains their dilemma.  God asks them to step into the raging river (“at flood stage”) and trust that He will take them to the other side where the Promised Land awaits.  The priests go first, as per Joshua’s instructions, followed by one man representing each tribe and then the rest of the Israelites.  Not until the priests’ feet hit the water did God allow the river to open for them to pass through.  One step. An act of trust that opens Heaven.

God offers us the same victory.

The next step is ours.   We stumble or we soar.