kingdom travelin'

Numerous articles of late have contributed to the ‘woe is me’ about the church. Statistics show church attendance waning in many sectors of USA. There is much wringing of hands that the church as we know it is done for.

This thinking, which leads to fearful emotions, especially among clergy, is unbiblical and based, at root, on a human centered theology.

It’s not your church, it’s HIS!

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (‭Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭38-39‬ ESV)

Maybe the reason we freak out is that we spend more time reading books about the church and how to accomplish this and that than we do listening to King Jesus through His word, and responding to His words to us in prayer. I recently saw a post that called into question our love of God if we don’t love reading His word. Tough words. But pose an important question.

Could your problem with fear for the church be that you love the church people and the act of worship more than you actually love God?

Some Scribes challenged Jesus about his followers eating with unclean hands (I can just see these guys in mid scoop of bread in the humus looking at each other then at their hands). Jesus never missed a teachable moment:

And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ (‭Mark‬ ‭7‬:‭6-7‬ ESV)
Later Paul said this:

But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. (‭Romans‬ ‭7‬:‭6‬ ESV)

My application of this is that we need to realize our liberation from the religious laws of man. I would even expand it to the policies and procedures, the rules and ideas to make our leadership better, our ministry more effective, our church bigger. 

If what we are about is not drawing US and those that we walk with into a deeper knowledge of, and walk with God, are we really any different than those Scribes?

Let’s be very careful that our heart is to know HIM first and help others know him in an ever growing manner. Let us not fall into the trap of letting our hearts chase worldly things that look like Christan success.