The Barbarian Way - Erwin McManus | Revolt

[Selections from]

|Everywhere the kingdom of God advances, there is a violent engagement against the dark kingdom. To be born of God is to be made a citizen in the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of God is at war. Do not confuse this kingdom with Paradise. Salvation is not reentry into a Paradise Lost; it is enlistment in the mission of God.

|We build churches that become nothing more than hiding places for the faithful while pretending that our actions are for the good of the world. 

|We are called to be warriors of light in dark places. We are mystical warriors who use weapons not of this world. 

|Given that Jesus Himself is the God of Israel, it should strike us as extraordinary that He was not welcome there. But then again, Jesus didn't like it there. One of Jesus' most violent moments took place in the temple. 

|[The sellers of goods in the temple] had become so good at religion that they had no need for God. They were so full of themselves that they had no room for God. When it came down to it, they loved their civilized religion far more than they longed to know the God who created them. They treasured the civilization built around their religion and despised the primal faith from which it was born. They would rather have the temple than the Presence. 

|[The sellers of goods in the temple] could not for a moment imagine that God would choose so barbaric a container as flesh and blood. It shouldn't surprise us that soon after they destroyed the Temple of God, God destroyed their temple. 

|Two thousand years ago God started a revolt against the religion He started. So don't ever put it past God to cause a groundswell movement against churches and Christian institutions that bear His name. If He is willing to turn Judaism upside down, don't think for a moment our institutions are safe from a divine revolt. I am convinced that even now there are multitudes of followers of Jesus Christ who are sick and tired of the church playing games and playing down the call of God. My travels only confirm that the murmurings of revolution are everywhere. I am convinced that there is an uprising in the works and that no one less than God is behind it. 

|Who could have guessed that a message of love could incite to much hostility?

|Jesus was crucified not in spite of His love, but because of it. Somehow love incites both love and hate with equal force. The mission of Christ would be so easy to embrace and carry out if love always resulted in love, but it does not. It seems the world insists that love be proved. So then those who claim love are required to endure hate's most brutal tests. Wherever the love of Christ would be spread by His disciples, they encountered rejection, persecution, suffering, and even death.

|Anyone who chooses the barbarian way will learn quickly that love and sacrifice cannot be separated. This is perhaps why so many of us who know love fear love. We know that love is not the absence of pain. If anything, love is the promise of pain. No one has loved more deeply than God. Has anyone ever been more betrayed? God would not know suffering if He did not know love. But because He is Love, He chose to suffer on our behalf. Without love there is no glory in suffering. 

|The suffering of Christ glorifies God because it elevates love. Compelled by love, God would go where He knew suffering was certain. Love always moves to sacrifice, which is exactly where He calls us to go. We shouldn't be surprised, then, that to follow Christ is to abandon the luxury of safety and security. If we are to be like Him, we must always risk for love. We are invited to follow Him with reckless abandon. The call of God is more than a leap of faith; its a life of faith. Even when it seems beyond our abilities, we should not be surprised when God tells us to jump. 

|We raise our children in the cocoon of a domesticated faith and wonder why they run as far as they can to find adventure.

|How many stories do we need of children who grow up in church being forced to act like a Christian rather than being won to the heart of God?

|The civilized Christian does what is right out of fear; the barbarian does what is right out of love.

|Christian civilization is held together by rules and rituals; the barbarian revolt is fueled by the passion of God and guided by the mission of God.

|Every citizen of the kingdom of God is brought into the heat of the conflict between good and evil. Everyone who swears allegiance to Christ bears responsibility for humanity. The power and force of the barbarian way are that each one who chooses His path must find the courage to jump.

|When we are born again, we are dropped not into a maternity ward, but into a war zone. Our birthplace is less mother's womb and more battlefield earth. Maybe the first words we hear should not be "welcome," but "jump." There is no trial run, no practice life. 

|The barbarian revolt is an insurrection that defies the treaty between civilization and the powers of the dark world. We will not stand by and watch humanity sell its soul to gain the world. We will not be seduced by the comforts offered us if only we would compromise. We cannot pretend that all there is, is what we can see. Barbarians know the world of spirit. We know there is a darkness that subversively corrupts the hearts of men, and to do nothing is to be complicit. We are born into a war. We may feel like children, but we are warriors.

|Paul reminded us that not only are we dropped into the middle of a war, but the war rages in the middle of us. You cannot run or hide from the war any more than you can run or hide from yourself. You can become a prisoner of war, but you are never exempt from the war.

|It is true that the enemy will essentially leave you alone if you are domesticated. He will not waste his energy destroying a civilized religion. If anything, he uses his energy to promote such activity. Religion can be one of the surest places to keep us from God. When our faith becomes refined, it is no longer dangerous to the dark kingdom. 

|Barbarians, on the other hand, are not to be trusted. They respect to borders that are established by powers of principalities. They have but one King, one Lord, and one mission. They are insolent enough to crash the gates of hell. For the sake of others, they are willing to risk their own lives and thrust themselves into the midst of peril. 

|It's as if at the moment of our conversion, we were lifted beyond time into eternity. Seated with Christ in the heavenly realms, we can't get much higher in altitude than that. But then created by God to do good, to fulfill His purpose in the world, to advance His cause, we are God's ground troops dropped back from eternity back into history. In the same world where we were once at home, we are not strangers and aliens. Where once we were enemies of God, we are not behind enemy lines. 

|We need to let ourselves become unique individuals that God created us to be. We need to stop trying to be what everyone else wants us to be and stop worrying about what everyone else thinks. Civilized people measure one another by their robes and signet rings. The barbarians measure only heart and actions. Barbarians live as if they are naked before God and naked before men. They have nothing to hide; they do not waste their energy pretending to be someone they're not. 

|The barbarian hides nothing before God, and his tribe battles naked and unashamed. 

|One barbarian wandering through civilization can be discarded as nothing more than an oddity. But when members of the barbarian tribe line up across the battlefield, side by side, something amazing begins to happen. Dark kingdoms tremble; the dungeons and prisons that hold men, women, and children captive crumble; prison doors open; chains unlock; and multitudes come to freedom. Whenever the barbarians of Christ pass through civilization, the oppressed and forgotten are soon found dancing in the streets. 

|When an opponent beheads one barbarian, he better be prepared, for we will return in force. We fight violence with peace, hatred with love, and oppression with servanthood. While never violating our uniqueness, we move together, united in heart and soul. Our greatness is unleashed in the context of community. When we move together, God is most perfectly revealed in us. 

|We need to move together as God's people, a barbarian tribe, and become the human version of the rhino crash. The future is uncertain, but we need to move toward it with confidence. There's a future to be created, a humanity to be liberated. We need to stop wasting our time and stop being afraid of what we cannot see and do not know. We need to move forward full force because of what we do know. 

|We may not be able to see what's at thirty-one feet, but we don't have to be blind to what's right in front of us. There's a world that desperately needs God, a world filled with loneliness, hopelessness, and fear. We have somehow become deaf to a cry that reaches heaven coming from the souls of men. But God hears. 

|...we must be aware of the temptation to return to the captivity from which we were freed. There is but one path to freedom. There is no easy road made available. We cannot claim to know Christ and to honor Him if we refuse the path He calls us to follow. Do not insist on binding Him or associating Him with a domesticated or civilized faith. Do not dishonor Him by claiming that a life of faith is a life without risk. This war has no room for pomp or pretension. 

|Jesus leads us into the heart of the dark kingdom, into the soul of what is most evil. He takes us where mankind has chosen to live. He calls us to where the darkness has made those who wander there desperate for light. He leads us as warriors of light to risk our lives for the deliverance of others. Again, our own weapons are love, hope, and faith, and they are our only defense. Yet we above all know that they and only they liberate us and fulfill the deepest longings of our souls.

|If you choose to live your life in this way, if you make the insane decision to live your live for the sake of others, if you choose to follow the One whose barbarian path led Him to the brutality of the Cross, and if you embrace His invitation to take up your own cross and follow Him, then it has begun. If you dare allow God to unlock your primal spirit, He will unleash the raw and untamed faith within. then you will know you have chosen the barbarian way out of civilization.