Christfollower

To the church in America

I am really wondering what it will take for the church in America to get on their knees and repent.

I believe that we are close to being forced there by global circumstances that may greatly effect life as we have come to expect it in our Country.

Wouldn't it be better if we started talking to God now instead of waiting for the world "to catch on fire?"

Most people in the American church are incredibly naive regarding the "ball" we have dropped. It was our job to take the message of Jesus Christ to our world. It was our great commission to go and make disciples of all nations. American Christianity has not been this weak in Centuries. The good news is that God is moving around the world. His church is alive and well. It is not rich but it is spiritually thriving in many places.

The world is erupting yet we continue in many places to have our little services, sing our little songs, and have our little church suppers! Many Americans never pick up the Bible, never get on their knees, never share their faith, never pray for an unsaved person and frankly do very little to foster the relationship they claim to have with Jesus Christ.

Jesus said I wish you were either hot or cold but if you are lukewarm I will spit you out of my mouth! (Rev.3)

So what do we do? Stockpile food and water? Built a bunker? Become political? I am not sure any of that is all that important. I think we should repent and cry out to God on a daily basis.

Repentance Prayer List for the American Church:

We repent that we have quit talking to You, God.

We repent that we have become more like the world than like You.

We repent that we have spent most of our resources on ourselves both at home and at church.

We repent that we have taken for granted the blessings of life.

We repent that we have failed to take the gospel across the street let alone the world.

We repent that we have wasted countless hours talking to ourselves in our church buildings instead of building relationships outside of our churches.

We repent that we could have cared less about the poor.

We repent that we have become comfortable with sin as a part of our lives.

We repent that more of us believe in sinning every day in word thought and deed then loving God 100% everyday in word thought and deed!

We repent that by our actions (or in-actions) we have demonstrated that we would rather the world go to hell if it meant that we had to change anything in our churches.

We repent that we have fought about music and completely forgotten the Message in the process.

We repent that we don't honor you with our tithe off the top of the resources You have given us but keep spending on ourselves even though most of the stuff we buy brings us no joy.

We repent that we seldom if ever spend anytime reading the Bible let alone studying it or hiding it in our hearts.

We repent that we have settled for a free ticket to heaven and forgotten what it means to be a disciple or Chrsitfollower.

We repent that as a nation we have totally turned our backs on You. We (the church) have grown comfortable with vileness and sin around us and especially in our entertainment.

We repent that while we believe You created us in Your image, we have returned the favor and created You in our image. We have lost our sense of emulating and following You but demand that You follow us around saving us from any hurts.

Lord we repent. We are sorry. We ask you to return and once again work through Your church. For this and a thousand other things Lord we pray this prayer of repentance. Lord hear our prayer.

The Eve of Destruction. . .

Barry McGuire wrote this song over forty years ago. Someone has put some modern pictures in but it takes me back to the feelings that were very real in the sixties and early seventies. The world spins a little precariously sometimes. Apparently we are in such a time. While I make no predictions regarding the end of the world as we know it I do wonder at the lack of prayer. I wonder where "the church" in America is regarding what is happening on our planet. I wonder who will pray and who will stand in the gap on behalf of those who have no one to stand for them. Here's the song. Obviously we weren't on the eve of destruction when it was written although that depends on your perspective of time in general.

May God help us to care and to talk to Him about our world. My goal is to do everything I can everyday to make a difference in Jesus name.



Finally someone actually says what needs to be said. . .

 So I digress from my old dusty books for a brief commentary on today's popular preaching. I have done everything I can in my own pulpit just short of naming names to counter Mr. Osteen's "happy happy" preaching. I am amazed and floored at how many people I know digest this stuff as if it is really biblical. I appreciate Driscoll's graciousness in light of how aggravating it is to preach in these days when this kind of non-biblical stuff is being listened to and held onto by millions around the world.

God does love us but bad stuff happens to all of us and serving God should never be seen as a special shield that always protects us from challenges in life.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Here is my favorite all time quote from Martin Luther King Jr's Letter from a Birmingham Jail.

"In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

There was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators."' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent--and often even vocal--sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust."  

These words from decades ago have sadly come true. Christianity has been marginalized and is a dying religion at least in influence on a culture desperately in need of the message of Jesus.

In 1878, the author of A Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, published a book entitled, Bible Readings. Hannah Whitall Smith wrote this little book as a look at the spiritual "types and metaphors" in some of the Old Testament stories and books of the Bible. She wrote some of the most helpful and positive Wesleyan Holiness literature in the latter part of the 19th Century.

I am choosing a passage for this post from the chapter on the book of Judges.

"No position in grace, no height of Christian attainment can keep the soul from failing. Only the present power of an indwelling Holy Ghost can do this, and nothing but continual faithfulness to the Lord can secure His abiding presence.

We never at any stage of our experience reach a place where we may relax in our obedience, or become indifferent in our trust. Obedience must keep pace with knowledge, and our trust must be daily and hourly fixed on our keeping Saviour, or all will go wrong.

Sanctification is not a state so much as a walk, and every moment of that walk we need the Spirit's power and the Spirit's presence as much as we did at first. . .

. . .But, let me repeat it, there must be no compromise with sin. By faith we must put to death every one of our enemies, (speaking here of inward sin or carnality/indwelling sin) every day of our lives. And this death is a real thing. . . We must have our enemies die, and our souls be actually delivered from them or there is no peace or security. . .

. . .Consent then to die. let the Lord send crosses, or afflictions or pain, if only by these He will but rid us of pride and self will and anger and all others of our inward enemies, and will conform us in every thing to the image of Christ. Let us, if Israel did not, obey the command of our Lord to drive out every enemy from our land, and then we need have no fear that the sad and God dishonoring experience of the book of Judges will be ours."

Much of her writing in the chapter was based on these verses of warning found in Judges 2:10-12:

"After that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things he had done for Israel. The Israelites did evil in the Lord's sight and served the images of Baal. They abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them our of Egypt. They went after other gods, worshipping the gods of the people around them. And they angered the Lord."  

This feels to me like the generation I live and minister in. This feels like most of the church world in America. Denominations seem consistent in one thing, after 100 years they all go the same way until there is a reformation/reforming movement.

Another Classic

When I am at home and spending time in my study more often then not I am reading a classic holiness book. I have been trying to work my way through some of the books that motivated and challenged me as a very young follower of Christ.

Today I am posting some words found in William McDonald's book, Saved to the Uttermost. In this volume he writes the following about the subject of "perfect love."  

"Infallibility is not a fruit of grace. While human ideals of perfection leave no margin for innocent mistakes and unavoidable errors, Divine ideals allow many to exist in connection with perfect love. A perfectly faultless being, according to human judgement, was never found among men.

Human estimates of perfection differ, it would seem from the Divine. Men judge by the outward appearance; God judges by the heart. We are not speaking of sins such as violations of the moral law; but of errors in conduct, mistakes in judgement, etc. 

Hence we come to the conclusion, that to demand perfect conduct, according to human ideals, is to raise the standard of holiness too high. It may co-exist with a thousand mistakes and infirmities. It is "love made perfect, " and not judgement made infallible."  (pg. 11-15)  

McDonald wrote published these words in the very early 1900's. This standard of holiness and perfect  love is both sane and attainable. It is full of the grace found in the Bible but not so much preached in certain circles of folks that view themselves as being "protectors" of the holiness message. I in no way condone a Calvinist or "sinning religion" viewpoint however many times in my past I have seen an obsessiveness that drives people to be hard on themselves over and over until they eventually just give up and live with a defeated and negative view of themselves. God's grace is there for us daily and when living a surrendered life, we acknowledge our mistakes, ask God for His help and move forward in faith.

 

A paragraph on holiness. . .

In about 1888, Sheridan Baker wrote a little book entitled Hidden Manna. What a great book! For anyone seeking holiness (a term I don't hear very often) it is a classic read. Here is a quote from the book:

"It is supposed by many that a life of uninterrupted devotion to God requires a continual struggle, and levies a constant tax upon the nervous forces of all who attempt such a life. But the very opposite is true. A life of holiness springs as naturally from a holy heart as a life of sin springs from a depraved heart. A sinful life flows from a sinful nature as naturally as water flows down a mountainside, and so also a pure life flows as naturally from a pure heart.

The life of perfected holiness is, therefore, the most easy, peaceful, and natural life that a human being can live. It is, indeed, the normal state of man."

The "normal state of man" of course is referring to a sanctified state where we have been restored to the way God intends for us to live. God has always been looking for a people that will follow Him 100% of the time and love Him with all of their heart mind soul and strength.I believe that we should teach that it is possible to love God every day in word, in thought and in deed instead of teaching the opposite and more popular doctrine.

Thankful for my old books.

Recent Reading. . .

Reading is one of my favorite things to do. I am sure this is because I was raised without the stimulation of television. My imagination was fueled and shaped by words rather than images.

Today I find myself with not alot of time for recreational reading but I read because of my calling. I prefer old books mainly because one of my strengths is "context." This means I believe that you can understand the present and the future by knowing the past. So. . .I am recommitting to reading more than I ever have. I am blessed with a wonderful home office and a bountiful collection of books. I will try to share words of wisdom from my reading for any that might stumble onto this sight.

If nothing else, my kids may find an interest in these blogs down the road when I am gone from this life.

The home study contains a modest collection of classic holiness books.

It is in this place that I read, pray, study and blog.

Today's quote is from my reading after an "old friend" named John Wesley. He inadvertently founded the Methodist church and of course would not recognize it today because it has strayed so far from its spiritual roots.  When speaking about singing in worship he said the following:

  “Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and reward you when he cometh in the clouds of heaven.”

   -John Wesley

 

In another book I have been reading I found these words:

"The most important benefit of a worship service is an awareness of the presence of God. That's more important than a captivating drama, an impressive soloist, or even a relevant message."

Back from not blogging for the summer. . .

It has been an interesting summer and one that moved by very quickly. Our son got married, our daughter graduated and moved to Croatia for a year and life seems to be moving by at a rapid pace. Here are some pictures from the summer.

Emily and Kaley graduate from Trevecca  

 
Lenore and I at Levi and Kaley's wedding.

 Kaley and Levi

 The night before Emily left for Croatia.

One last hug from her mother.

Ready to go. . .

It has been a busy summer! On top of all the personal stuff it has been quite busy at church and the Sheriff's Office and the YMCA.  I may post a few pictures later from some Sheriff's Office activities. My intention with the blog is to share some of my latest favorite quotes from my current reading. I have wanted to do this in the past but have not been consistent with it. Hopefully this time will be different.

Here's a quote for today: "Love isn't a one-shot sortie into someone else's need. It gets involved; it doesn't stay clean and separate." -- Paul E. Miller, from his book, Love Walked Among Us

Jesus is the ultimate example of incarnational love. He got involved and it wasn't clean and separate. He took on the form of one of us and experienced life so we would know that He can relate to our struggles. He did not have to do this but He did it because He loves us.

 

Thank you John Piper. . .

 

In a crazy world where people from all denominations are running after emotionalism and a health and wealth mentality I am thankful for one who stands and preaches the truth of God's word regarding this subject. Christ never promised we would live on this earth without pain but He promised over and over to be with us in the midst of our greatest sufferings.