This is a further reflection I had on Luke 21:7-9 and Jesus’ warning that many would come in his name….
It strikes me that whilst we may occasionally hear of people claiming to be Christ himself, these are usually considered mentally ill, deranged in modern society. Some may be led astray into dangerous and abusive cults. However, generally speaking, these are nor a risk to Christians. The greater risk is from those claiming in some way to represent Jesus but in fact promoting their own agenda. These often promise in various ways that if we do things there way then we will meet success, we will be individually prosperous and collectively successful. This is the undertone to contemporary movements such as The New Apostolic Reformation with its dominion theology or Seven Mountain Mandate but it’s also there in more conservative streams especially where there is a post-millennial-reconstructionism approach. I think this underpins much of what we see under the Christian Nationalism banner.
I remember at University that our Christian Union would be frequented by speakers who would announce that God was doing a new thing in our generation and we were going to be in the van guard of it, it was going to start in Sheffield. I don’t know if they were particularly interested in the seven hills that Sheffield is meant to sit on or if they gave the same speech at every church and CU they visited. In any case, the reality is that some of us have gone on with the Lord and sadly some haven’t. Some have seen fruit in chosen vocations including some in Gospel ministry. I’m not aware of any world changers that were amongst us.
I guess it would be easy for my generation to have been caught up in the hype and now disappointed. In the same way, you or I might experience crushing disappointment if we don’t personally see breakthrough in our lives and it is possible for a generation to become cynical. I think we need to guard against both the extreme of naively being caught up in whatever nonsense comes along from puffed up people and the danger of dumping a bucket load of cynicism on today’s generation. A healthier approach is to seek to encourage people to see what is happening from the perspective Christ shares here. We need to remember that this world remains enemy territory. We aren’t called to go on some offensive in our strength to take it. It’s Christ who will inevitably be victorious. In the meantime, we are called to fruitful faithfulness and to enjoy our assurance in him, living in certain hope of his return.
Faithroots 