Death To: 'A Hill To Die On'

Few phrases are more frustrating to me than ‘a hill to die on’.

It’s not really because of my military service, although there’s an element that surfaces there for sure.

It’s not that I think fighting about something that you value is wrong. I’m all for that.

It’s the posture that’s all wrong.

We live in a time when men have been functionally castrated, the church has become soft, and we approach our faith more like one of many badges on our Boy Scout vest, during this time that’s becoming more hostile to Christians.

Christians today are worried. Worried about ruffling the wrong feathers, offending, and alienating people. They’re worried about backlash and reputation damage in the culture.

Being offended is the central theme in society and is the water we swim in. The aim for most is to avoid offense at all costs - even if it means letting people stampede society with their infiltrating sinful ideologies.

To think that we can swim in that water and not be in danger of being changed by it if we’re not absolutely careful, is a total miss. The Church has absolutely succumbed to the ideologies of culture, and it has been done so deceitfully and cunning that we’re largely unaware.

Isn’t that baked into the criteria for being deceived, though? To be unaware of the fact that you’re deceived is a prerequisite for the state of being deceived. If you think to yourself “I’m not deceived”, by definition you very well could be. It requires a humble heart to cry out to the Lord regularly and ask him to show you your blind spots. That’s the way to truth.

And that’s the danger of comfort, complacency, and resulting passivity.

It often causes us as believers to enter into the cycle of sin and deliverance seen all through scripture by God’s people. It goes like this:

1. Sin - We’re tempted into a sin
2. Slavery - That sin grows and we become enslaved to it
3. Supplication - We cry out to the Lord to save us from ourselves
4. Salvation - He shows up and delivers us
5. Silence - There’s a period of peace, silence, and stillness that breeds complacency
6. Forgetfulness - We forget the danger of our ways and become tempted again - leading back into sin.

We’ve seen this cycle over and over and over again. We’re in this cycle right now. Our complacency has led to cultural sin, which has led to slavery. Some of the Church is waking up to this and crying out in supplication for deliverance, but much of the Church is sound asleep.

You might be saying “Alright, enough with that - what does this have to do with dying on a hill, Chris?”

Great question.

One of the primary symptoms that I have noticed as the Church moves in the direction of alignment with culture is that we begin to take the posture of defense and triage, rather than offense.