My church affiliation is as sincere as tribes go. The Church of Christ is devoted to some of the Bible. In theory we could claim commitment to all; yet in practice (like all other churches) only some.
What I'm about to say is merely my assessment. I glean it from experience with us; with me.
Some hundred or so years ago egocentric personalities arose in effort to out-debate and out-shout other egocentric personalities. Never actually admitted, control became the name of the game; yet Truth was paraded as the issue. Average and good men polarized from other average good men.
Doctrines became weaponary benchmarks for stances; for faithful positions of both attack and defense.
The church Jesus is building has suffered injuries from verbal shrapnel. Men gained control and began stating that God didn't operate directly in our world. They found it necessary (to keep their line of thought going) to teach that He only worked through the Word which seems to have meant that God worked only through their understanding of what they thought the Bible said.
God was ultimately and quite mistakenly shelved.
Awareness and even confidence that mankind had interaction with the Living God was shattered in the name of faithfulness. God no longer used His voice nor His arms. Thus, men could run the show.
One catastrophic fruit from this humanistic tree which is now eaten without the slightest reflection is that prayer died in the church. Overall, the greatest of our workers and most devoted of our leaders pray very little. I did not say that no one prays. In general, I'm pointing out that we are much more interested in meaningful activity and experience than we are in communicating with Father.
Jim Cymbala said, Prayer is the source of the Christian life, a Christian life-line. Otherwise, it's like having a baby in your arms and dressing her up so cute--but she's not breathing! Never mind the frilly clothes; stabilize the child's vital signs. It does no good to talk to someone in a comatose state. That's why the great emphasis on teaching in today's churches is producing such limited results....Pastors and churches have to get uncomfortable enough to say, "We are not New Testament Christians if we don't have a prayer life." This conviction makes us squirm a little, but how else will there be a breakthrough with God?
From cradle to casket, the need will always be to draw closer to God. May 2013 be a year of breakthrough for the masses among us.
1 comment:
Challenging thoughts Terry. You say things which perhaps many want to but don't. Change is difficult, to say the least, yet much serious thought needs to be given to where we are heading. As dad said in one of his lessons on "Soul Winning, is not what we do it's what we are", "We've left all the emotion to Penticostals, Door knocking to "Jehovah's Witnesses", grace and faith to the Baptists, but we have the truth." We need to quit being afraid, that people will confuse us with a denomination, and just be who God wanted us to be... His joyful, loving, soul winning, happy, believers that stand in His great grace, and sing the song, "I'm redeemed by the blood of the Lamb."
Thanks so much for speaking out Terry.
Jack Exum Jr.
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