The Threshold

As world travelers join on the Atlanta ICRS showground to proclaim their Christian marketing skills I’ll be there, Lord willing.

I suspect I’ll be standing in a dilemma seeing the array of goods. I’ll be puzzled with thoughts of what Christianity has come to.

Perhaps I’ll be thinking that I’m looking at a version of Matthew 21:1-2 and John 2:14-16, “a den of retailers” but with good intentions. Has Christianity become just another product to sell?

Movies, television and radio shows are used to sell commercials. Perhaps the worship of Jesus has become so insensitive that thousands gather to study the newest techniques in marketing the materialism of the Holy Trinity. Perhaps not.

Perhaps my presupposition is tainted. Maybe I won’t see Father God, Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit reduced to likenesses and artists interpretations as trinkets and bobbles hanging on strings? Maybe not, have to wait and see.

Will I hear the reasoning that the world is a better place with those trinkets than without? I hope so. I know these goods are given as gifts.

Will I feel I’m part of what I don’t want to be part of? Will I know I’m standing exactly where I don’t want to be? I hope not.

I’m there as an author of an unusual story telling how truth is stranger than fiction. How God worked salvation into my soul at 36.

How He gave me faith to believe in the sacrifice of Jesus, which saved me from hell. I’m there on the pages, on a bookshelf, and like an arrow flying the gospel call ready to be directed by God.

I’m there to experience the hope that the gospel will come alive in someone’s unbelieving soul. I hope my life’s story somehow helps that soul.

I know and believe King Jesus rules the world. I hope I’m there like a solider in the Trojan horse with the zeal of the Lord wanting to get out biblical truth and stand up exhorting the gospel truth.

How long will my slow understanding of the sale of Christian ornaments, knick-knacks and stuff last before I buy a Christian coffee mug and book markers?     

Will I be jaded by the excess of booths with merchandise and roam toward the book publisher’s corner and read the Bible for strength? Of course I will. How will the advancement of GOD”S KINGDOM turn out…. ONLY God knows.

Will I return with a better understanding about the army of Christian retailers that gathered in Atlanta Georgia? I hope so. I think so.

As long as souls are saved and Bibles are being sold in retail stores on streets or online and read. And the trinkets and bobbles are not worshiped, (Deuteronomy 4:24 “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”) then all is well.