image is everything

what i don’t get is how we can have churches on the corners of one of the most crime-ridden areas of major metropolitan cities and have such little impact. what great disservice we do to have a sunday morning service, a sunday evening service, and a wednesday night service and call it impacting the community. how is it an impact if the youth are still strung out on drugs, the girls are prostituting themselves and the boys are killing each other? yet we have a secret society at prayer so far removed from what is happening just outside the four walls. what service are we actually providing?

why do we claim the victory then ignore the battle? is there a direct relationship between the spiritual disrepair of the world and the lethargy contained within the four walls? how can the church claim victory for what is not involved in?

what price are we willing to pay? Why do we expect the cost to go down?

there is a form of spiritual inflation at work. as the church continues to withdraw into the four walls, the price at which the lost will be returned grows greater.

when will the church decide enough is enough?!?

who is willing to pay the price to reach the fourteen-year-old selling crack on the corner? who will cash in and go reach the pimp and the two prostitutes in the alley? will the next gang murder be enough? or will we shake our heads and go about our business? will the next rape be too much? how about the next drug deal?

why are we, the one’s the world claims to be intolerant, so tolerant of sin? why are we so concerned about our image? the image God wants us to reflect is His, not the world’s- not tolerance. we are supposed to reflect His image, to radiate His glory. yet we are content to hoard the gifts of God for ourselves. we prostitute the Gospel. we will be held accountable for the things we see, the things we hear, and the things we choose to ignore. And that SCARES me! we claim that ignorance can be bliss and cognitively ignore the state of the world around us. then when catastrophe strikes, we claim it is God’s judgment on a world fallen into sin.

it appears that our christian counter-culture is not merely a subculture, but an actual counter culture. we put our christianity on the counter to wait until we have to pick up again when we grab our Bibles on the way to church. practical atheism is plaguing the pulpits and the pews in the western church. it is birthed in many seminaries that are little more than theory think-tanks by those who only want the benefits of christianity with out paying any of the price. they are serving tomorrow’s pastors and church a bland, tasteless, salt-less Christianity. in truth, it is a gospel without Christ.

if the church can’t separate itself from the world, the Groom will pass over that potential bride and find a true and holy bride for Himself.

it is imperative that we realize that when we ask for God’s judgment, or when we pray for a revival of our churches, not only will he take us seriously but His judgment will begin within the four walls. it begins within the congregations and those who are only there to socialize will be weeded out. the Bible doesn’t even mention weeding, but Jesus suggests something even more drastic! they will be spit out, removed far from Him. forgive the graphic nature, but when something is spit out, it does not merely dribble down the chin as in the case of a baby, but it is removed far from the person and they walk away from it. Jesus also mentions pruning off the dead branches so that new ones can grow.

in some cases, pruning is within the branch; religious spirits and sins that are unintentional are among the first things to go. in other cases, the whole branch must be cut off so the tree can continue to grow and not die. the dead branches that have been cut off are set on fire to bring to dust. a dying branch can be saved, but a dead branch cannot live again.

for the world-wide renown of His sovereign glory...