Whose side are you on anyway?

"God's work done God's way will never lack God's supply." --Hudson Taylor

Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, "Are you for us or for our enemies?"
"Neither," he replied, "but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come." Then Joshua fell face down to the ground in reverence, and asked him, "What message does my Lord have for his servant?" The commander of the LORD'S army replied, "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so. --Joshua 5:13-15 (NIV)

I used to wonder about that verse from Joshua. It seems like the commander of the army of the LORD would have sided with Joshua, against the enemies of Israel. But as it turns out, the LORD just is; the matter of alignment is exclusively ours, as we are measured against the plumb-line of where the LORD stands.

And I say all that to point out the fact that American churches and American christians, as a general rule, make plans for themselves and organize things under their own power, and then try to attribute it to God. Maybe that's why church is so lackluster. We build a twenty-thousand dollar, professional sound system and a coffee bar in a big, multi-million dollar building where we can close ourselves off from the intrusive world and put on a good show and talk about how God has blessed us. We have well-orchestrated programs. We have christian-corporate, political ladders to climb; we build them with money we earned ourselves. Just like we built the building with plans we made ourselves. I guess they'll know we are christians by how well we put things together.

Hudson Taylor's statement about God's work, His methodology, and His supply is such a simple observation. And it would be so easy to implement, if we could just align ourselves with what God is doing, rather than doing our own work and expecting God to align Himself with us.

--jlm