CULTURE: LOVE

John Zick has been a part of our staff as an intern, as an extension of Capital Christian Center's Masters Commission.  Recently John's role has shifted to "Cultural Specialist."  We are excited that John will continue to work with us not only to help us research cultural trends and thoughts. He is working towards credentialing with the Assemblies of God.  John also is a part of Pathway Apprenticeship and has a passion for evangelism. In the next couple of months, he will be launched out of our office as an evangelist through Pathway.   We are excited to have John on our team!  His article is below:

We are supposed to show the world that God is enough, that His love will last you a lifetime. We are the “doctor” and have the equipment and knowledge to stop the pain, but apathy spreads too quickly to control. It’s a virus that sucks the fight right out of us. We say God is all we need, yet eighty percent of young, unmarried Christians have had sex.

Our Christian culture does not know what love is, and God is love… we say it because it sounds cool, it sounds right, it has a ring to it, God’s love is enough. But we search for the same morphine the unsaved person desires. Eighty-eight percent of unmarried young adults are having sex. Eight percent more then Christians, and we get mad and frustrated when they don’t understand God’s love. Forty-two percent of evangelical Christians are in a current sexual relationship opposed to fifty-three percent non-evangelicals. But God is enough, right? Just do as I say, not as I do?

Sex is not the only morphine we use, but in our generation it is one of the main ones. We have to show that God is our addiction. I have recently seen the movie, The Adjustment Bureau. The theme of the movie was a U.S. senator (Matt Damon) and a studio dancer (Emily Blunt) fall in love and this team of people known as “the adjustment bureau” say it is not in the overall plan for them to be together. The whole movie consists of the two going against all odds and fighting for their love against the bureau. It got towards the end of the movie and finally Matt Damon asks them at the peak of his frustration, “Why do you care if we are together?” The bureau responded, “Because once you have her, she will be enough. You will no longer need to seek the high from speaking in front of people and that high is what will promote you to president one day.” (Not word for word but the main idea.)

I could not help but think of my relationship with God. After sinning and feeling distant, at the peak of my frustration, I ask satan, “Why do you care? What does it matter to you if Jesus and I are together? Can’t you just leave us alone?” If satan was forced to respond with honesty, I feel like he would have to say something similar to the movie plot: “Because God is enough, once you have Him you won’t search any longer, you won’t need anything to fill your void. Once you figure that out you win and I will once and for all lose! But don’t worry that wont happen anytime soon because I have disguised it. If I can’t get you with sex, I will get you with a church addiction, I will have you wanting and needing the very gift God gave you to use for good, it will become your fix.”

If we want our generation and this world to change, God truly has to become enough. Period. We have to show them we don’t need a fix or a quick high, we just need God!

Source; national survey of reproduction and contraceptive knowledge conducted by the national campaign to prevent teen and unplanned pregnancy, Dec. 2009