The opportunity was afforded me a few years back to visit the great New York City. Visiting this large metropolis was an awakening experience especially when you’re from a relatively small city in Canada. You get a real sense of awe when gazing your eyes upon the grandeur of the lights, the historic tall buildings, it’s monuments and the sheer volume of people travelling through its streets. New York a center for art, music, and theatre (and sometimes combined) and the best acts around the globe flock there. It has the most exquisite museums and art galleries anywhere in the world. By inference this city didn’t achieve it’s magnificence overnight. It took many years of development and New York has some serious history associated with it. What also comes to mind in pondering this megapolis, is the other side of the beauty. The reality of crime, sex and violence that plagues the city which to my understanding has gotten far more intense since my time there.
One other thing that was noticeable was the diversity of religion. Much like their shopping district, if you wanted to find a religion, it was available. Various religious beliefs were present whether in their edifices or someone in the streets with a placard trying to make a sale by warning about the end of the world. You didn’t have to look far for a religion to fit your needs. With that said, one must wonder how a person attempting to start a church with little financial backing would go about to bring his/her faith to the Big Apple? Imagine the intimidation of walking into a city staring a soup pot of various beliefs and attempting to establish your own. Now, try to picture yourself entering this city and you are preaching a message that goes explicitly against the establishment so much so that not only are you riling up the local temple priests, Rabbis, or imams but now you have the mayor and governor attempting to put shut you down. Why you may ask? Because you’re preaching a message that is completely opposed to theirs and you’re refusing to bow the knee to theirs! Because your message is more than simply an agnostic yoga class. You’re preaching a message that there is only one God in a city where most believe there a multitude, and everyone of them is seen as authentic. You are proclaiming a Messiah who is calling on them to repent from their sins, be it their idols, their sexual perversions, their oppression, and to embrace Him as the only way to be right with this One God. But not only this, you’re telling the government officials that they’re not in charge. You’re establishing the fact that Jesus is Lord over them, and not their Democrat representative. Needless to say, your entrance into the city wouldn’t be welcome and how intimidating would it be for you to be charged with this daunting task.
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