Base Camp

April and May are the climbing season on Mt. Everest. The feat has always held a special interest for me. Each year hundreds of adventurers set out to conquer the peak. Precious few make it up the southern face, over the Hilary step and behold the glorious view at the summit for a precious few moments. Physically these people are dying. Above 7000m there isn’t enough oxygen in each breath for the body to survive. So each April and May there is a race against death between base camp (5000m) and the top of the world (8848m). Every climber knows, intimately, that they are dancing with death. But the pull of the mountain is just too strong. Pride is too great tempter. Every year many climbers either don’t return from the mountain or return maimed by the mountain. Toes, noses and ears lost to frostbite. Seizures, hallucinations, poor decisions and death from asphyxiation. But they’ve conquered the deathzone.

As Christians we spend too much time in our own deathzones. Unlike the climbers, we Christians often do not recognize that we are in trouble or that we may be sending someone else on a course of failure. We are not aware or not educated to the dangers that are ever present before us. This is how we end up with the luke-warm “Christianity” Pastor detailed in some of our more popular “Christian” celebrities. Pastor’s message certainly challenged me, forcing me into that uncomfortable zone where I know I need to examine what I really think and believe rather than what I’ve been taught. I know I’m not alone. The whole issue of love and tolerance has been corrupted in our country (don’t get me start on the corruption of the separation of Church and State). We are called and even commanded to love the gay man or woman, the murderer, the tax collector as we love ourselves. However, at the same time we are commanded to despise their (and all) sin. Love the person (noun), the child of God. Hate the sin (verb). Our society has blurred the line between individual (noun) and sin (verb). As a society we are in the deathzone and don’t know it.

Fortunately, the Bible speaks to these types of issues and the cost is clearly laid out.

Eph. 5:1-2
“Be imitators of God…Live in love as Christ also loved us.”
Eph. 5:6-12
6Do not let anyone deceive you with meaningless words, for it is because of these things that God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. 7So do not be partners with them. 8For once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light. 9For the fruit of the light consists of every form of goodness, righteousness, and truth. 10Determine what pleases the Lord, 11and have nothing to do with the unfruitful works of darkness. Instead, expose them for what they are. 12For it is shameful even to mention what is done by people in secret.

It turns out it is easily known whether or not your treading into the deathzone. You just have to look around you. Are your toes black and falling off? Are your lungs burning? Is your mind confused? Where is your fruit? Are the fruits of you actions “every form of goodness, righteousness and truth?” If the answer is yes you should be writing these devotions. The rest of us have (unknowingly) entered the deathzone. It’s not too late to return to base camp. Live as children of light. We have our example not in the celebrities of today but in the Ancient of Days. I’ll see you back at camp.