Wow, my heart has been overwhelmed lately with conviction. Conviction for myself and others. Things have just been knocking on my heart lately at just how complacent and mediocre we as the Church have become. If you are offended by that I'm sorry you feel that way, but regardless of us getting offended we, as the Church, are not living up to our potential as believers in Christ. And we seem okay with it. Well, I'm taking a stand and saying right here, right now that I'm not okay with it.
I'm not okay with us pouring our time and energy into things that don't serve a purpose. I remember when I accepted Jesus as my Savior and committed my life to serving Him all I wanted to do was share Him with others because I cared. I truly wanted others to know Him regardless of the costs to my reputation. It was exciting to me to share God's love and that was all that mattered. Somewhere along the way I lost that zeal and in it's place stepped in the church. When I use church here, I'm talking about the little church, not the big Church(God's people). I'm talking about the building, the politics, the programming. I traded my excitement for God, for meaningless things that we try to justify and make excuses for as important.
If I have learned anything it is that we do not need "stuff" to proclaim God. We don't need to curriculum that has been Saddleback tested with a stamp of approval(btw, that is not a dig at Saddleback because I believe the do good things), flashy lights, nicely painted walls, beautiful sanctuaries, and pews with pads to proclaim God. Guess what, God is already time tested. Our curriculum was tested thousands of years ago.
And at this point I would guess you have done the same. I think we have developed a culture within our churches that at some point sucks something out of believers and pushes them to just play church and not live Church. When I look at Scripture and I see Paul and what he accomplished without all the stuff, it convicts me. For goodness sake, Paul sat in a prison and was excited about it because it still gave him the opportunity to share Jesus. What have we become Church? What have I become?
A verse that has been literally knocking down the walls of my heart today is this:
"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." - Philippians 1:21
This verse was an eye opener. I have read it literally hundreds of times, but it hadn't impacted me because I was still playing church, instead of living Church.
I had to get real honest with myself and ask the question, "Do I feel to live is Christ and die is gain?" or am I poser? Someone who preaches and teaches that but doesn't actually live that. And I'm not big enough to say that I feel I fell more into the poser category than the life is Christ category.
I feel for me that church drags us down and we become jaded to Jesus. I'm not saying we don't believe and we don't love Him. That is absolutely not what I'm saying. I am saying that because we are so busy doing menial things and tasks we forget and forgo the true joys of living for Jesus.
Think about it! Paul is in prison and all He can think about is how his life still has to be a representation of Christ. That his life is Christ. For crying out loud, we can barely do that on Sundays. I challenge you to read Philippians 1:12-30 to get an even better picture of what I'm talking about.
We have to change something Church. Something has to give. I feel we have to stop making excuses for our actions and behaviors. I hear things like, "Well, having a contemporary looking sanctuary shouldn't be the reason people come to church, but we need one because we have to keep up with the times." WHAT?!! How ridiculous! God is not a matter of the times. He does not go in and out of style. I will say that putting lights up and painting the walls and so on is not a sin but what we have made it is. God is where our focus has to be. I'll be the first to admit, I have said things similar to that statement. I have let trivial things become more important than the message of God. This is not living for Christ. Do you think Jesus walked around and went into places of worship and said, "Oh, this light is just not going to do?" NO, because Jesus cared about two things, JUST TWO! Loving the Father and loving people. That's it!
And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” - Luke 10:27
Read it and weep folks! It's just that simple. When we have a genuine love for the Father and love for people we are letting Christ live through us. Trust me, people will take notice. What would you rather have, someone come up to you who has this programmed, rehearsed speal talking about this guy named Jesus or someone who you can tell is genuinely sold out for what they are saying and you can tell cares deeply about you. That's a no brainer.
Church, we have to stop with the world's way of doing things. We have to stop trying to be "relevant". Like, "the message never changes, but we have to change the way we give it". NONSENSE!!! When did showing love and care for someone change? Oh, thats right! IT DIDN'T!!! If we are to be reflections of Christ than how can we say that we are not relevant. Did I miss something and all of sudden Jesus became irrelevant? Likely not.
Now, there will be people who read this that will continue to argue against what I'm saying. That's fine. Continue to be blinded by the world mainly because you want to hold on to something that is not nearly as important as Life is Christ. But if you are open to what I have been saying, I challenge you to remove mediocrity and little church from your life. I challenge you to reflect long and heartfeltly on these verses and pray for God to remove the barriers that have been created from years of doing church and not living Church. I pray that God's Spirit moves in your life that you forsake all the meaningless things in your life and realize that their is only one important thing and that is Jesus. And with that realization that you do not let a church culture to influence how you carry out His message, but you allow Him to dictate that through His Word and His Spirit guiding you. This is my prayer for all of us. Life is Christ and to Die is Gain because we will be with Him.
