Cynic (def) - a person who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons.
Mimic (def) - Imitate someones actions or words in order to entertain or ridicule.
Meme - an element of a culture of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by non genetic means, especial imitation.Which are you? Most people would say, "I don't want to be either one!" The truth is these three characteristics are similar in nature but very different in action. A person becomes a cynic usually over a period of time where they have one disappointment after another and those disappointments stem from trusted people letting them down. Maybe they even feel like God has let them down. So they become cynical and mistrust people's motives in what they do and how they do it. Years ago a few very famous preachers went through some tough moral times as they were exposed for not being who they said they were and the effect at the time was very bad. It took borderline cynics and pushed them over the edge. Sadly enough, it affected many of the community of disciples in the church and we have been dealing with the impact of those situations ever sense. I was serving in a church in Missouri and one of our ministers had a habit of saying he would do something and then get the peoples hopes up and get them motivated and then he would call it off. I remember feeling the disappointment and then seeing the disappointment in our members eyes as their hopes were once again dashed. In Romans 5:5 Paul wrote "And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us." Hope in the Lord doesn't disappoint, but our hope in our fellow believers has begun to wane a bit, and the trust that a believer will do what they say is lessening more every time a person doesn't follow through with a commitment they make "to the Lord." As believers in Jesus Christ, we are "people of hope." Hope is not only our middle name, but our foundation for living. That's why scripture says we have "living hope." I Peter 1:3 says "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." We have a hope of eternal glory in heaven and hope of an abundant life here on this earth. There is no room for cynicism in a believer's life. Cynicism only dampens the effect of the message of our salvation in our life and causes us great depression and doubt in living out our faith as we serve the Lord. We are people who trust God and should trust each other, even when those we respect fail in front of us. We reverse the mistakes of a few men of God by focusing our attention on God alone and letting the freshness of the Holy Spirit keep our minds and hearts revived and renewed on a daily basis.
In the next few weeks I am leading our church to redefine their faith and redefine what our church should be like and push the "reset' button on discipleship. Many mistakes have been made in the past by people who didn't pray and ask for God's perspective on what we should do to reach our world for Christ. We have allowed massive, worldly, relativism to rule our thoughts and direction and have "lost our way" in the process. It's time to come back to our roots that are planted deep in the soil of God's grace and mercy. To take the Holy Spirit at His Word and daily be filled with His power and start to take back territory that should have never been given up. It is no wonder millennials are searching for the real truth when it is right in front of them and ready to be lived and loved. I don't believe in generational Christianity because I believe it is weak and easily manipulated. Manipulated to cater to our wants and desires and not centered in on the core truth of God's Word. In other words, whether you be a child, youth, college student, young, middle, or senior aged person, the Bible is still the same and cannot be changed. So quit trying!! You will lose that argument every time. We have cultivated things like organic faith, ego faith, Las Vegas faith, and many others. We need to get back to our core faith and God will take care of the other details from there.
Oh yeah, mimic. A mimic is the result of all this other cynicism taking root in a person's life The mimic will make fun of all this "Christian" stuff in their heart and sometimes vocalize their disdain for the sake of entertainment. The good thing about a mimic is they show us just how much we are running in circles, but usually with no answers of how to change it. Our modern day version of that is called a Meme The Meme takes those things that a mimic has established as a truth and they pass it on to others, all the time, heightening the problem by not using the pure source of the truth. There is another type of person who can reverse the negative things that are passed on by mimics. This person is called a disciple, or a person who walks with God. Let me illustrate below.
Cynic........Mimic..........Meme..........no hope
Cynic......true disciple......Meme......great hope.
Which path are you on? Time to get in on the true path of victory living and get out of the way of those who are trying to make an impact for the Kingdom. In other words, change or scoot over so real ministry can be done. It's all a matter of perspective.
The Pilgrimage continues..
David Warren
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