Recently I have had the opportunity, no, the responsibility, of experiencing some church services held throughout our country. It’s obvious thru media and the like, we have become a nation divided on where we stand not only in our present day views on spirituality, but even on our views of how this nation was founded. But the scariest thing I am encountering in my exposure to random services, is the blatant misconstrued use of the scriptures!
I’m not talking some funky weirded out religions here, that we expect to preach heresy; I’m talking supposed Bible based, Christian filled, mission oriented churches! It seems as if we have begun to liken our Christianity to sex…as long as we “get ours” we couldn’t care less if the other person gets theirs.
Explain to me how everyone in the congregation rushing towards the front as if there was a Kmart Blue Light Special happening, helps the person in the chair next to them that doesn’t know the Lord??? No amount of whoopin’ and hollering is going to lead that person to Jesus. They don’t understand it and sure can’t find a basis for it in scriptures. Something like that only serves to create a lot of emotion that will most likely wane before those who are jumping and screaming even leave the building. Is this something they will carry into the work week with them? Something that will be used to bring others into the Kingdom of God; will they now begin to walk in God’s love and mercy for people because of this outburst? Or will it most likely only last long enough to make them feel good about themselves and the church they attend; much like when a Youth group goes to camp and comes back all “fired up for ..Jesus..”. Within 2 weeks those same kids who were going to conquer the world, need another camp-like experience. Because it was ALL EMOTION and NOT a life changing experience. If you ask someone where they were, what they were doing, etc… when the NY Yankees won the 2000 World Series, few could tell you, but if you asked them the same questions about themselves during the attack on the World Trade Centers on 9/11, everyone could tell you-because it was LIFE CHANGING. The first was just emotion and excitement but the latter, was so, so, much more. Church attendance and services should never ever be about feeling better about yourself, but about sharing God and seeing yourself as God sees you: as filthy rags covered in the righteous blood of His son. It should be about a desire to devote yourself to the things of God and His mission to be accomplished, not about the emotional roller coaster ride that is forgotten as soon as you leave the fair grounds!
So, what about this person who stumbles in because he or she feels a desire to find out who this Jesus person is and what it’s all about? How does a “feel good church” whose message is ‘God wants you happy” help the person who ISN’T happy? News flash-God doesn’t care if you are happy, He wants you to be His. Period. The thought process in this church is that we are to have an abundant life; plentiful and overflowing with blessings, safety and happiness.
I am sure Apostle Paul begs to differ with that philosophy. He even states in Phil 4:11 that he knows how to be “content with more or little”; this was a man that was persecuted and tortured. He was not always blessed in our sense of the word, neither was he kept safe and secure from harm. Christianity is a dangerous business! It’s not for the faint of heart or the cowardly and sure isn’t for the ones who only seek to “enlarge their tents” monetarily speaking. Joseph and Mary didn’t feel warm fuzzies as they obeyed God while being ostracized, and were constant victims of gossip and maliciousness. Neither did Job feel protected as God allowed Satan to strip him of everything. And Jesus certainly was not seen as a safe person to hang with as he went about chastising the religious leaders of the day. I dare say as a parent back then, I would not have been happy about my child hooking up with some rebel that would most likely get my child killed.
As a person whose spiritual gifting is that of exhorter (Webster’s def: to incite by argument; give warnings and advice) (how many of you erroneously think that is a bad thing? LOL.) I am not here to hold your hand and steady you as you tip-toe thru life. I’m hoping to shove you, roughly, into a reminder of what our purpose is here! Not to coddle you as though you are an infant in Christ If you feel in the past that I have ever done that, please forgive me. I certainly did you no favor by giving you the opportunity to wallow in your faith or by allowing you to use that said faith as an excuse to judge and persecute. That is not my calling. I hope to offend you-to the point of you asking yourself “WHY am I offended?” Could it be because you see yourself in some of the things I’ve mentioned? I know I do. I see myself in this everyday! I have been the “accuser of the brethren”, uttering “thus saith the Lord” based upon some teaching I heard from a so called Man of God and not in my earnest search and understanding of the Word itself. And I have been the accused, judged without merit based upon another persons ideas of what God “really meant to say was..." I have put my faith in false beliefs such as ‘God loves us, and no matter what we do we are “A OKAY”, or in believing every word that falls from the mouths of those behind a pulpit. And I have been called on the carpet by the Holy Spirit for it too! As followers of Christ we are told to suck it up,and to be accountable for everything we hear and say concerning the Word of God. As he choose His disciples in the NT Jesus told them to leave the things they cared about, as His task was more important that the silly, routine and finite, things of this world. That doesn’t sound “feel good” to me.
Another frightening thing I see is the absence of our Elders. Why are they no longer visible in our churches and who decided that coming to the altar for healing was an acceptable practice unto the Lord? My Bible states that the altar is to bring sacrifices for forgiveness, an offering of repentance if you will. As for healing, we are to “call on the Elders of the church to lay hands upon the sick”. Is it any wonder why there are few to no miraculous healings and deliverances taking place? Instead we see week after week the same people with the same request being prayed for by the same prayer partners who have no spiritual authority to do so. We have so watered down and distorted the word of God…It’s the same as if some random person wandered into your home and tried to “set things in order”, spiritually. There would be no authority there. That is the charge to the “head of the household”-Not “Super Nanny”.
Don’t get me wrong…we are to pray “with and for” others, but the Bible plainly states it is the Elders who have been charged with laying on of hands. Not the person in the chair next to you who may or may not even have a right relationship with the Lord; their only qualification may be their desire to know your business in order to share with others! I’m just sayin’…Churches, Pastors, Board members, and Deacons, are so afraid of offending their “tithe base” that we have begun to play a dangerous game of placating and complacency. No longer is there a charge of making disciples and serving others, it has been translated into satiate your own appetites, check off the appropriate “God boxes” on your to do list, put on a happy face, and go about your Sunday. But where does that leave the broken, the abandoned, the hopeless, and the discouraged? Who will set aside their own selfish motivations and actually serve those people when our churches are modeling for us that same self-serving mentality?? God help us???? No! We should suck it up, realize life is NOT “a box of chocolates”; you DO know what you’re going to get…heartache, pain, disappointment and disillusionment! But in the end, who freaking cares? Because all that matters is how you impacted the Kingdom of God FOR God with what you were given..
I’m gone!
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