Well I don’t know exactly what I am supposed to say, I just know I am supposed to say it, so here goes, random thoughts… kinda long, so read as you are led…
I am reading a book called “Revolution” George Barna – WOW!!! Here is a summary… WAKE UP CHURCH!!! Not church with a “c” – the building or the organization… but Church with a “C” – the Body Of Christ. The book is about a movement in America… They (we) are people who want more of God- much more- in their lives. And they are doing whatever it takes to get it.
Redefining the Christian faith and the Church in America. It is an explosion of spiritual energy and activity, we are calling it the Revolution- an unprecedented reengineering of Americas faith dimension!
What makes revolutionaries so startling is that they are confidently returning to first century lifestyle based on faith, goodness, love, generosity, kindness, simplicity, and other values deemed “quaint” by today’s frantic and morally untethered standards.
This is NOT a defeatist retreat of an underachieving low capacity mass of people!!! It is an intelligent and intentional embrace of a was of life that is the ONLY viable antidote to the untenable moral standards, dysfunctional relationships, material excess, abusive power, and unfortunate misapplication of talent and knowledge that pass for LIFE in America these days. Many revolutionaries have tested the alternatives an found them to be woefully inadequate!!! Now we have gratefully and humbly accepted the opportunity to do what is right, simply because it is right, even if it is not original or culturally hip!
There is not such thing as going with the flow.
You either stand for JESUS, or you stand for everything HE DIED TO REPUDIATE.
HERE IS THE RESEARCH
The biweekly attendance at worship services is generally the only time they worship god.
8/10 do not feel they have entered into the presence of God or experienced a connection with him during the worship service.
½ all believers say they do not feel they have entered into the presence of god or experienced a genuine connection with him during the past YEAR.
Only one of four say when they worship god they expect him to be the primary beneficiary of their worship, – most say they expect instead that they get the most out of the experience.
• AAAHHH, are you kidding. Ok, at first I wanted to get judgmental, and to attack the church… no the enemy is satan and he has hit close to home… we must take back the kingdom, we must rise up and fight… god has done his part, he sent Christ… now what are we going to do. Church today he said we take God (prayer) out of school and then there are shootings and we say, how could god let this happen, we turn to God when the bad stuff happens… where is God… NO, where were you when your child needed you, where you when the poor man got desperate, when the man beat his wife next door, when the teenager turned to drugs, where were you CHURCH??? Where were WE???
Christ did not die so that we may be comfortable and complacent, but so that we may die to self, pick up our cross and follow Christ.
• Here is what I am finding, I am not giving up anything… I am being so filled with the fruit of the spirit. My life is so alive!!! I don’t want it any other way, the cross is not a burden to carry, the debt has been paid, it is a gift… not just a ticket to heaven, but to experience the rewards of heaven right here and NOW in our lives on earth.
• Time to wake up believers… time to take back the hearts and souls of believers!!! GOD did not call us to get up on Sunday, put on a suit, and sit in a pew (yes he calls us to gather together, stay with me) He called us to love one another, to BE CHRIST LIKE!!! To live and die for GOD, literally!!! He did not call us to just Go to church, he called us, he commands us, to BE the Church…
OK, that is what I have for part one… more to come…
Your thoughts…
