This World Is Not My Home

True believers do not belong in this world. We have no home, no place to rest and be ourselves. While we could say the church is supposed to be the place where we can openly live according to the Spirit, people keep bringing their narrow sub-cultural expectations in and demanding conformity. So most churches are little more than social laboratories where you can learn all the ways people refuse to adopt the life of Christ, doing all they can to justify it by perverting His teachings with semantic games.
There is a broad thread of academic social research showing where American white middle class merchant culture comes from. It doesn’t require birth in some other culture to take this seriously; it requires you not take yourself so seriously. I know what I grew up with, the schizophrenia of trying to be honest while suffering from the ambitious materialism of trying to fit into the middle class society. There came a point when something inside of me died. While I struggled for some time after learning how to talk about it, I decided I could no longer take that society seriously. I played along when it really didn’t matter, but fought with hard resolve when it did.
I recognize the flaws and inherent immorality of my peasant class upbringing. There are parts of it I reject, but not with the prissy scolding of the dominant middle class. I reject it from the grounds of some other culture entirely, one that remains to this day utterly alien to the entire gamut of Western sub-cultures visible today. Some time ago I discovered the Ancient Hebrew nomadic culture was designed by God as the optimal atmosphere for fallen humanity, offering the single best chance to have a life worth living. I might not make much noise in some contexts simply because I won’t throw pearls to swine — nothing and no one there holds enough significance to justify my involvement. I’m just tolerating the situation because I can’t control the circumstances. However, should anything or anyone in that context demand I get involved, it will be on the terms my God directs. Screw you and your feelings about what’s important.
That’s called “character.”
I hold the utmost contempt for what most humans consider important. My God says none of it is important unless it flows directly from His revelation. Not your highly perverted cultural overlay claiming to represent what He revealed, but I promote the real thing in all of its ancient Hebrew glory. Let’s cite a few examples.
Don’t like being touched? Stay away from me. My God says we are designed for tender human touch; it’s hard wired. If you resist that, you are embracing evil. I’ll hold out the gentle warm offer, but you had better understand that does not mean I’m a pushover when it comes to something my God requires of me.
Are you worried that touching might have some kind of inappropriate sexual element? Stay away from me. Your silly notions about human sexuality arise from an evil heathen culture that doesn’t know Jesus Christ. Unless a woman is as tough as truck stop waitress, she had better stay away from places where men do what men do. That’s how the Hebrew people handled it, where a man or woman would never address each other in public unless they were family or had essential business to conduct. You don’t have to act like a man to hang out with the boys, but you had better be able to hold your own the way godly women do. That sort of thing is so rare in America, you probably have no real idea what it looks like.
Don’t like the least bit of noise or boisterous behavior? Go home and close the doors and windows; put on headphones or at least ear plugs. That’s how I handle it, because it is wholly unrighteous for me to demand the kids stop playing and discovering their world. I’ll help train my grandchildren, but I’m not your kid to be trained. Shut up and stay out of my world, and I promise I’ll do my best to avoid yours. Meanwhile, you aren’t just wrong, but damned wrong, if you believe your way should rule in this world. There is a time and place for noise and it’s seldom at everyone’s convenience.
If you sense a need to publicize your demands for a better, more civilized society, make sure you get it from the original source. God is not a Western cultural construct. The smothering mothering nanny approach is from Hell. It is entirely good and right that the wrath of God is already beginning to fall on our fake feminist America, and I’m looking forward to some mass slaughter and destruction. How else can I look at it? I don’t rejoice in human suffering; I rejoice in the revelation of God’s wrath on sin. If that wrath rolls through my life in the process, I’m prepared to rejoice in that, too. I fully admit I don’t understand all the ways I disappoint God, but I’m willing to bet I’m way ahead of most everyone I know. Not in self-righteous gloating, but I stand in the assurance I am ready to face the consequences of my choices. Your perceptions and choices are your problem.
Yes, it does breed an element of truculence, but I refuse to be a slave of any mere human. I’m willing to make life difficult for you if that’s what it takes to satisfy Jehovah’s call on my life. I’ll join Jesus in cracking the whip against oppression in my zeal for the Father’s business. I refuse to accept your evaluation of what is just and fair. It’s not a question of whether I’m right or wrong, but whether I obey the best I know. It’s between God and me, and you aren’t in the calculation until after the decisions are made. I sincerely hope you do the same, and I surely expect your mission will intrude on my life some, because I’m hardly perfect. I’m just determined to walk the path I see; I have the confidence of peace with God.
My spirit is rejoicing and my soul is at peace with the destruction already falling around us. I can’t wait for the Lord to call me Home; I’m ready to see the face of God and accept His judgment.