Passion and Boldness
In 2009, the American rock band Rage Against the Machine was part of a campaign to top the United Kingdom’s music singles sales chart during Christmas week. If successful, they would join something known as the Christmas Number Ones list. They offered to perform a free concert in Finsbury Park if their fans downloaded enough copies of their song “Killing in the Name” to propel them to the top of the charts. It was an act of defiance against what band members described as the “sterile pop monopoly” in the U.K.[1]
In the end, the band sold 500,000 downloaded copies of its song, handily beating its main competitor. The concert was on. I happened to stumble across a broadcast of the show while channel surfing one night and was astonished at what I saw. Thousands of fans were jammed into the outdoor venue and their response to the band was surreal. At times the crowd looked like a great swelling wave of humanity as people jumped in unison to the music. The level of passion expressed by the fans for the band was remarkable.
In September 2018, I went to a prayer event on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It was the fourth such event in five years that was organized by a group that has encouraged hundreds of churches in the D.C. Metro Area to commit to removing the divides that separate them and to saturate the D.C. area with the Gospel. Since the first two events were attended by five and seven thousand people, respectively, I was expecting a significant crowd. What I saw was disappointing. There couldn’t have been more than 150 people there in addition to the volunteers, speakers, and performers.
I heard lots of reasons for why people didn’t show up. It was cloudy with a chance of rain. It was on a Saturday and people were with their families. Parents needed to take their children to sporting events, etc. What the heck has happened to us?! I thought. How can we be so passionate about a band or sports teams or companies like Apple and have so little passion for God and His amazing message of grace? There have been better-attended Christian events for sure, and I’m not advocating the hysteria displayed at the Rage Against the Machine concert, but when it came time to sacrifice one morning to gather together, pray, and magnify God’s message of hope, we blew it.
Our passion for God in America is weak and getting weaker by the day. We’ll fight like mad to elect judges to implement laws that most people won’t honor, but we won’t take the time to humble ourselves before God, petition Him, and trust that He will answer by changing people’s hearts.
I went to the prayer event because I learned about the realness, power, and impact of God’s grace over a ten-year period during which my relationship with my ex-wife (Diane) was restored, and I cannot stop sharing the wonderful things I have experienced.
All Christians have the “incredible greatness of God’s power” at work in their lives,[2] and “through [this] mighty power at work within us, [God can] accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.”[3] Do we really believe this? I do. I’ve experienced it. And anyone else can, too.
We have this power at our disposal, but it starts with the hard and unglamorous work of humbling ourselves before God and our neighbors, praying without ceasing, delving into and trusting God’s Word, and expressing the radical love of Jesus Christ to everyone. I think this is what Jesus meant when He said we must take up our crosses daily.[4] Only then will we be unstoppable in passionately and boldly sharing God’s Gospel of grace with everyone we meet.
FOOTNOTES: [1] Rage Against the Machine beat X Factor winner in charts, BBC News, December 20, 2009. See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8423340.stm. [2] Ephesians 1:19-20. [3] Ephesians 3:20. [4] Luke 9:23.