It's A Different World

Pastoring today is very different than it was when I began in the ministry in the early 1980's. I can recall numerous times where people came to me back in those days and would ask me (in one form or another of these words) to help them because their lives were falling apart and they were desperate. Many times people would say that they knew that I was once where they were and that I'd climbed out of the trap and they wanted me to show them the way.  Today, people (especially younger folks) come to me and they want me to help them BUT they DO NOT want me to tell them that what they are doing is wrong. It happens all the time. Someone comes to me asking for help and it is not very long before they are angry at me because I am "judging" them. They get mad because I tell them they need to change something and they respond, "There it is! There's the judgment I've been waiting for!" 
Hello?
You come to me and tell me you need help because "it's not working." Your life is falling apart at the seams. You want what you see in me... but I'm not supposed to tell you that you need to change? That's insanity! That's like coming to a hitting coach and asking him to help you improve your hitting, but then getting mad when he tells you that you need to change your swing. That's just crazy!  

Let's bring this back into ministry or our Christian walk. People look at me and they see a guy whose life was ravaged by sin, controlled by all sorts of worldly "pleasures" (how pleasurable is drug addiction) and depression and suicide attempts and all sorts of other things. They see that I have somehow escaped all that and that my life is filled with joy, I have a wonderful marriage, I'm no longer suicidal and I've been drug and alcohol-free for more than 36 years and they want me to help them... BUT, I cannot tell them they are doing some things wrong! They don't want to hear that the answer is in admitting that my life was a train wreck and that I was bound by SIN, not the tools of sin, and that it was only in surrendering to Christ my entire life that I was born again and given a new nature. No, people today don't want to surrender all... just some. Just enough until life gets a little better. They really are not interested in Jesus as Master, only Jesus as a pain easer. They are looking for a way to remain in their sinful lifestyle but keep a "jar" of the healing balm in the cupboard for times that it gets too painful to manage. The sad thing is, that this IS the "gospel" that is being preached in many churches today. And many will die and face the true judgment completely unprepared. This is the very people that Jesus was referring to when he said, "21 “Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. 22 On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ 23 But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’ (Matthew 7:21-23)