Raise the Bar and Lighten Up, Jeshurun

As our church and community has walked under the heavy blessing of God for some time now, we should pay close attention to the instruction given to those who walk under such blessing. “Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked” is a fitting warning for us (Deuteronomy 32:15). But that warning requires that we know the true nature of the problem and a key ingredient to the solution.

The problem, of course, is not growing heavy with the blessings of God. You’re supposed to do that. The problem is that often our truncated vision can’t keep up with what God wants us to do with those blessings. He equips us with weapons to conquer nations and we are satisfied with twenty acres. The problem with the rich man who built bigger barns wasn’t his crop, nor was it his saving. It was that he didn’t know where to spend all of the blessings that had accrued to him. He was to be rich toward God. But his vision for honoring God was too small.

The solution is to labor toward a grand vision of the public honor of God. Among many things, this involves rainbow flags falling form “so called” houses of worship in this town, the city council swearing allegiance to Christ, households being marked by holiness, and Christian education flourishing amid the demise of the secular kind.

But a key to working toward this grand vision is found in the phrase: Raise the Bar and Lighten Up. Given the war chest of God’s kindnesses that has come to us, it would easy to raise the bar and tighten up, subduing yourself and others to excellence overload, as it would be easy to lower the bar and take a load off. But the way forward is to level up while letting our arms swing free like a young and plump Jeshurun whistling his way down the sidewalk, careless enough to conquer kingdoms.

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