"For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing." (2 Corinthians 2:15)

In this day and age, we have become pretenders. We pretend that we desire to live Christ-like, yet if followed home from church or to work, one would discover that some of us become someone else. When it is time to go to a church function, we reach in our jar and pull out the mask of pretext that best suits the church function we are going to attend. We attend church as if we are going to some gala event in which we will be entertained. We miss the point of the preached Word because our hearts are not attuned to the move of God in Christ. We attend church simply to be respected by peers, to be accepted by family members or the community at large, but our hearts are far from God. Therefore, we do not change or transcend our fleshly desires, which are contrary to the Spirit of God. We have become numb to those incidents in our lives that should bring us pain; a mode of enlightenment that should be influential in awakening us to care for our fellow man.

Until the illusion of caring is met by the reality of negligence, societies “ills” will continue to leave a residue of decadence. It is only when humankind is startled awake that we move to act in a mode of prevention. When the planes hit the towers on September 11th, we all suddenly became aware of our own vulnerabilities. Why does it always have to come to that?

I am by no means an alarmist; however, I am a realist, and the reality of today strongly indicates that we are headed for another shock wave of disaster. When will we learn that money, home and security are but mere pacifiers for the love of God? When those things are removed we cry, when we should already be crying for our Father, the true sustainer of our lives. He allows security and affords us the opportunities to have money, home, and jobs, until He determines that we are allowing them to replace Him in our lives. Then the true battle ensues to determine whom we will belong to. Will we choose the god of icons, egos, money and relics or THE GOD of everything? We are challenged at this level in every way, every day of our lives. Who do you choose?