To Obey is Better Than Sacrifice

Well you pray to prosper and succeed but your flesh is something I just can't feed ~ Keith Green. “To Obey is Better Than Sacrifice”[1]

 

            I’ve been listening to songs that heavily influenced my spiritual upbringing lately. I became acquainted with Keith Green’s music when I was sixteen and newly transplanted from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Several fine young Christians embraced this lost newcomer and invited me to experience the things they loved. As you can imagine, there were other kinds of teenagers and temptations. Nevertheless, the Lord had a hand in this crucial point in my life – a fact for which I am unspeakably grateful.

 

            The contemporary Christian music industry was in its youth in those days too. As with most youth, there was a wild, reckless side of the new genre. Some entrepreneurial record producers saw a new stream of revenue and pressured Christian music artists to record the Christian equivalent of bubblegum-pop music. There were even non-Christian artists who went into the world of contemporary Christian music so they could leapfrog into secular pop music.

The producers were right about the potential of this fledgling market and millions of records were sold. But some Christian artists pushed back because they felt that God was calling them to use their gifts for his glory and not their own. Keith’s songs frequently called on the Church to resist the urge to satisfy the flesh so mainline record companies didn’t mind rejecting him. Eventually, a new Christian record label emerged so that songs like his could be mass distributed. As God’s hand continued to direct my paths, I began to see how shallow some of the music was and gravitated toward the likes of Keith Green.

 

Now, I’m sure your grateful for the little history lesson but wondering where I’m going with this. Or, maybe you’re already ahead of me. Perhaps you’ve deduced the parallel between the young Christian music industry and general Christian living. The temptation to “feed the flesh” is so powerful, and Christ’s enemy is so industrious that we can easily be duped into consuming bubble-gum Christian faith. We can be convinced to feel that our souls are healthy when our flesh is satisfied. Actually, feeding the flesh robs the soul of vital spiritual nutrition.

 

There are Spirit-filled tellers of truth-in-love calling from the wilderness like John the Baptist. They are like the prophets of old whose message was largely rejected because their hearers felt that prosperity was a sign of God’s favor. They evaluated their righteousness according to human cultural standards rather than according to God’s Word. When someone dares to suggest that our Lord cannot feed the flesh it’s infuriating because it sounds like he is putting limitations upon God as we have come to understand Him. Too often the starving flesh is not satisfied by our Creator according to expectations, so we remake the Lord into one who will. We deny who God is and create an image that meets our needs. Does that sound familiar? It’s what the Israelites did while Moses was upon the mountain and they created a golden calf to represent Yahweh. That my beloved is tantamount to worshiping Satan!

Here’s another line from the song I quoted above. Keith sang, “Well you speak of grace and My love so sweet – how you thrive on milk but reject My meat. And I can't help weeping at how it will be If you keep on ignoring My Word.”

 

Ask yourself this, “Have I been asking the Lord to feed my flesh?” When you pray, do you list a lot of things you wish God would do for you and those whom you love? It seems right to ask our Lord to fix, preserve, and heal, but to what end? What part of you will it feed? How will it serve the Lord? What if our whole religious paradigm is out of sync with God’s Spirit? These are hard questions to ask, aren’t they? What if I told you that you have the rest of eternity to sort it out if you’ve repented of sin and embraced the grace of God through Christ the Son. The Holy Spirit in you and around you is ready to guide you toward the truth. He waits patiently for you to throw out the bubble-gum Christianity and begin to hunger for real, eternal manna.

       

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[1] 1978 Universal Music - Brentwood Benson Publishing (Admin. by Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing, Inc.)

Birdwing Music (Admin. by Capitol CMG Publishing)

Ears to Hear (Admin. by Capitol CMG Publishing) CCLI License # 1252648