Whoa! Just looked at that title again and it does look “right!”

Let me attempt to put it in perspective.

• I was ruminating on some things this morning really early (that is when it is still dark outside and the sun doesn’t come up for several more hours type of early).  I had been reading in K. P. Yohannan’s Come, Let’s Reach the World last night [SIDENOTE: Never, ever read any of his stuff, ever! It will mess you up something fiece!] on the quandry of reaching the unreached with the Gospel. That messed with my sleep.
• I saw my first patient this morning and ended up getting on a soapbox with them about some of the same thing.
• I saw my second and third patients and yep! I was still up on my soapbox. (What’s either sad or interesting is that each of them were acting like a cheering squad, egging me on…)
• Then I opened up my GoogleReader and saw Perry Noble’s post from yesterday and, just like that, it all came together!

I know too many folks who treat this whole Christianity thingy as a) not that important or b) as too important. They either go through the motions or they make the motions more important than the message.

Perry’s post was on Isaiah being told by God to run around buck naked for three years. Yep, three whole years! Don’t you bet he got some choice comments from the church going crowd? His point is that when you do what God tells you to do a lot of folks are going to do their best to rain on your parade because “God isn’t in what you’re doing.”

He states:

I say this to encourage the pastors and church leaders out there who are willing to go the extra mile and do whatever it takes to reach those far from God. If you keep reading this text (Isaiah 20:4-6) God had a message to communicate through this event. Yes, it was very creative. Yes, it made people VERY uncomfortable! And yes, God used it to speak truth…and I am sure NO ONE ever forgot this — EVER!

Bottom line: if it takes getting naked to reach the unreached, and God is in it, that is what must be done… regardless of what the critics say. Followers will be dying because of it…

Religious Minorities Told to Convert or Die – VOM Sources
Christians in northern Pakistan have been receiving letters threatening them with death if they refuse to become Muslims. The Voice of the Martyrs’ contacts in Pakistan report Peshawar’s minorities are living in fear after receiving dozens of letters mailed to them in August. VOM contacts report, “There have been numerous threats sent to Peshawar’s Kohati area. The letters say if we don’t become Muslim we will be killed.”
                                                              Voice of the Martyrs [21 August 2007]