Detox

      

A few weeks ago I had lunch with a friend who shared that she was in Detox. Earlier that week I had coffee with another friend who has been in Detox for some time. I rejoiced with both friends in their Detoxification experience because, having been in Detox for a few years myself, I know what a great experience it is.

Both of my friends had pulled the plug on talk radio; both of my friends had pulled the plug on mainlining 24-hour news and an obsession with politics. Both of my friends were refocusing on Jesus Christ and His Kingdom. Their minds and hearts are experiencing cleansing and they are finding peace – knowing that all the political entities of this world are passing away.

I recently read the first line of a commentary by a well-known Christian leader, it went something like this, “I admit that I am a political junkie.” While, as Paul writes, to his own master he stands or falls, I’ll use that statement as a foil:

Here is a man whose ministry was once leading people to Jesus Christ. He wrote a best-selling book that consisted in his personal testimony of coming to Christ; he spoke to large audiences about coming to know Jesus Christ; his life and his ministry were unambiguously about Jesus Christ – no one else and nothing else shared center stage with Jesus.

But now? Well, I have a friend who has been forwarding this man’s commentaries to me for years and I can’t recall reading about Jesus – political agendas, economic agendas, and worldview agendas have become center stage and Jesus Christ has been eclipsed.

It seems we’d rather talk and think about prophetic things, economic things, and political things than think and talk about Jesus – than live for Him and for each other. As a pastor I learned that a primary source of anxiety among my people was the media – talk radio and 24-hour television news – whether it was from “right” or the “left” or the pseudo-Christian.

And so I rejoiced with my two friends in Detox. As for myself, well, even though I’ve been in it for awhile I’m still discovering things in my system that need to be purged…to be continued.