My thoughts lately have focused on a couple of things, the first being total, all out surrender and the second being the Will of the Father. Even when those words form on my lips, my heart leaps, my spirit soars and all of my being screams, "Yes, Lord Jesus!" And more so I have become more painfully aware of the many parts of my life that are not yet surrendered (fully) to the will of the Father. Oh, Jesus, forgive me! It is only by His marvelous Grace that I can come before Him, humbly aware of my flesh that seemingly resurrects itself overnight. I am beginning to understand more fully Paul's confession of "...I die daily..." It has become more apparent to me of my desperate need for all of Jesus, in everything, all the time and how utterly helpless I am to accomplish anything outside of His Grace. I shared a bit of this with some friends as we gathered over the weekend, feeling a bit overwhelmed and even angry at my own ineptness while, at the same time, so aware of the desperation I have to know Christ intimately. It was like God was showing me once again how much of my life I still call my own without even realizing it. He is so patient with me - thank you, Jesus!
It seems to me that the modern church of today is fashioned a lot like the hierarchy of the priesthood back in Jesus' day. Our leadership roles and titles are not much different than they were back then really. In fact, we possibly make things worse by placing a "Jesus tag' on our methods, our programs and our agendas by labeling them with God. When you look at scripture, at the Cross and Jesus' completion of the Father's Will there, Matthew 27:51 tells us the veil (or curtain) was split in two, from top to bottom. This curtain was what separated the sanctuary, the place where commoners could enter, from the Holy of Holies, a place where only the priesthood would dare trod. In fact, no one even wanted to go there and the priests access was usually limited to once a year. Jesus' shattered the very need for the separation and gave to each of us free access to the Father!
So, I must ask you, why are we content with 'church' as usual where one person is placed up front, at a pulpit or other place of importance, where they spoon feed sermons to their congregations? Have we become so lazy that we do not wish to put forth the effort and sacrifice to enter into divine relationship with Jesus Christ ourselves, instead opting to have someone else do it for us? Every part of a traditional church service seems to be carefully orchestrated to cater to the our fleshly, consuming nature. Our words are filled with sayings such as "coming to church to get fed", yet I cannot find ANY scripture that supports this mentality. We have created this insatiable monster who must be fed, over and over again, forcing dependency of remaining a babe yet all the while we wonder why people never seem to 'grow up' in Christ.
The Great Commission in the New Testament (see Matthew 28:18-21) is our example of what the Body of Christ should be. Not only does Jesus tell us to "Go into all the world..." He specifically tells us to "make disciples of the nations". This is the key area where most mainline churches have failed - they have failed to mentor new believer's in discipleship training. Being a disciple is to become like Christ, fulfilling the claim of being a Christian is to be a "little Christ". We are so bent on spoon feeding the Bible to folks, who willingly eat and eat and eat. The trouble is no one is getting up from the Table! In his book, The Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsh said, "We cannot consume our way into discipleship." When I read this, I dawned on me that we have opted to consume (or devour) the things of God rather than to simply be filled by them. When you consume something, you do it merely for the sake of yourself. It's honestly a rather selfish act because the concern is only for yourself and what you can get out it. Being filled, however, denotes a place of surrender, a place of willingly being emptied of yourself so that God can fill you with Himself. The difference is a heart condition, one of truly wanting Jesus simply for who He is and nothing else. Oh how I want to know Jesus, to love Him unconditionally simply because He loved me; He knows me yet loves me anyway!
Oh, how I love Jesus
Oh, how I love Jesus
Oh, how I love Jesus
Because He first loved me.
1 comment:
I so agree with you! The book of Acts gives us a model for the new testament church and few ever think to look to it for guidance.
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