Atrophied inside our AMPsuits
Oct 13, 2010
I don't know why, but the picture on the right is close to the image I woke up with the other morning. I am prepared to acknowledge this was "I, not the Lord"!Even so, this is the thought that emerged...could it be true that we are inside an AMPsuit? Can we use our talents, gifts and positions in business and the church to leverage more power and prestige than is due? Could it be that how we do church can actually put us and our followers into more AMPsuits?
The obvious examples are the rich who command respect and sychophancy just because they are rich and others want to be in their favor. Or the pretty woman who gets the guy with the Porsche. Or the sports achiever, whose physicality on the pitch now can undergird his bravado off it.
To be sure, I have no doubt God is delivering me from some AMPsuit-ishness (yes, the English is terrible, sir). I remember a few years ago getting a vision of a magnifying glass rammed into my neck (no blood please, we're British). I sensed God saying to me through it, "Do not exaggerate the size of your heart. Just be you, and speak what is true". Lying and exaggeration are probably the most-used AMPsuits of them all.
And what of the church leader, who becuase of his title and position alone can direct the troops, color up the hall, promote his friends, have a fan base, join a global network, travel at will, develop a hip blog (oops).
The trouble is, even with nice-guy leaders, AMPsuits entrench divisions and promote invisible hierarchies in the church. Jesus never intended for us to be dazzled by exteriors, but knitted on the interior. He desired and still desires a church full of Cross-centred equality without it being labelled "secular egalitarianism" by those with the biggest and shiniest AMPsuits. He exclaimed through Paul, "those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment!!" (exclamation marks added by me, sorry it's just how I read scripture, trying to sense the emotion and tone).
Why do we wonder at the low level of commitment to the boring things, to the mundane, glorious ploddy routine, when we have wooed people with our AMPsuits, and helped them climb into their own?
People rightly say that we have a righteousness apart from the law; that we are justified by grace alone apart from any works....but because we see "law" and "works" as something formalistic and staid and stolid, we fail to apprehend how much legalism passes through the net because it is shiny and colourful and backed by a smoking Fender Stratocaster. Whatever we churchgoers do that is not of faith, is sin. I might not be taking a lamb for evening sacrifice, but I might well be someone in public that I am not in private. I might well be full of faith in leading a prayer meeting, but still fighting God's dangerous dealings in my own heart. I might well be urging others to generosity, while taking big honorariums myself (now there is a loss of moral authority). Jesus hates religious hypocrisy above anything else (check out Matthew 23).
But don't take this as an attack on your bishop - I am looking at my own heart and saying, "God, divide me with your sharp sword". Are we different from the world, on the inside? Are church circumstances and position our AMPsuit in any way? Do you really think your managerial authority in the office gives you any spiritual authority in your home or church? Will you have as much influence through your faith and godly character as an immigrant in Sweden, as you do now as a preacher in a charismatic church in Sussex? I know it sounds like a series of strange questions from a strange man. But these are vital matters, before the next set of waves or series of storms.
Death to AMPsuits, life to the amplification of the Spirit, as we fellowship with Him in our minute worlds. Make the tiny grains of salt so salty, Lord.
