Beloved in this fast pace, high tech church filled with so much noise that we declare as spiritual there is a generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines that is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God.
We read our chapter, have our short devotions and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious entertainer. Often in our churches, cultivating our relationship with God and spending quality time with getting to know His person in this high pace society is looked down upon as being old fashioned.
The tragic results of this spirit are all about us. Most of the church today live shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the predominance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious exercises, semi-spiritual fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit: these and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious sickness of the soul.
Today Charisma is seen as being spiritual. The more the hype and noise, the more we feel God is there, yet in truth these meetings are as empty as the people who came there to be filled. Even in the youth movement, noise is being looked upon as spiritual. The louder we are, the more we look like the world, the more appealing we will be to them. To that end is a truth, we are becoming more appealing to the world, but as we do we become more unappealing to God.
For this great sickness that is upon us no one person is responsible, and no Christian is wholly free from blame. We have all contributed, directly or indirectly, to this sad state of affairs. We have been too blind to see, or too timid to speak out, or too self-satisfied to desire anything better than the poor average diet with which others appear satisfied.
To put it differently, we have accepted one another's notions, copied one another's lives and made one another's experiences the model for our own. And for a generation the trend has been downward. Now we have reached a low place of sand and burnt grass and, worst of all, we have made the Word of God conform to our experience and accepted this low plane of spirituality as the very pasture of the blessed. Each new Christian meeting or TV program looks exactly like the other, boasting the same things, and trying to get the same money, and the lives of the people listening get emotionally changed for a moment with no lasting growth.
Though many preach about "fulflling your destiny" with all the tricks of the trade, they make no real way to find their true destiny. Jesus said, "This is eternal life that you may know the one True God and Jesus Christ His Son." Truly knowing God as a Person is our destiny. This is why we were created. In knowing Him, we will learn of His true desires and thoughts and ever live to please Him.
Many of today's leaders do not teach of the relationship that God has desired for us which is to be one with Him like a Bride and a Bridegroom. Why, because they themselves have not partaken of this divine truth, and intimacy with God is not sought after or they profane intimacy by making it a formula or ritual to their own ends. Their understanding of true intimacy with God is so lacking and filled with spiritual pride it pushes those hungry for God away. Few or our present day leaders are teaching what God's desire for us as a relationship is to have our souls to gaze upon Him habitually in deep fellowship and love.
The present word of the Lord from the mouths of today's leaders is about destiny, blessings, power, gifts. They sparingly even mention a deep cultivation of the manifest presence of the Lord if they know it at all. It is more hype than substance, more self help sermons than the power of God, and this has been welcomed by a church that has forgotten a God who so desires to be known and to truly reveal Himself to us. I am not trying to be critical of people, just of what we are doing? Why have we forsaken the Lord of the work? Why are we putting the work first and God second? Who has bewitched us in thinking we can do this work apart from His Manifest Presence?
May we return to become a seeking people who destination is not to be rich in this world, or in religious success, but with the true riches of heaven. For those who hunger truly for God their reward is God Himself and they need no other. Jesus taught us that, "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord have we not prophesied in your name, or cast out devils in your name." Jesus replied, "Depart from Me you workers on iniquity I never knew you." God forbid those words would be spoken to our ears!
We read our chapter, have our short devotions and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious entertainer. Often in our churches, cultivating our relationship with God and spending quality time with getting to know His person in this high pace society is looked down upon as being old fashioned.
The tragic results of this spirit are all about us. Most of the church today live shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the predominance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious exercises, semi-spiritual fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit: these and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious sickness of the soul.
Today Charisma is seen as being spiritual. The more the hype and noise, the more we feel God is there, yet in truth these meetings are as empty as the people who came there to be filled. Even in the youth movement, noise is being looked upon as spiritual. The louder we are, the more we look like the world, the more appealing we will be to them. To that end is a truth, we are becoming more appealing to the world, but as we do we become more unappealing to God.
For this great sickness that is upon us no one person is responsible, and no Christian is wholly free from blame. We have all contributed, directly or indirectly, to this sad state of affairs. We have been too blind to see, or too timid to speak out, or too self-satisfied to desire anything better than the poor average diet with which others appear satisfied.
To put it differently, we have accepted one another's notions, copied one another's lives and made one another's experiences the model for our own. And for a generation the trend has been downward. Now we have reached a low place of sand and burnt grass and, worst of all, we have made the Word of God conform to our experience and accepted this low plane of spirituality as the very pasture of the blessed. Each new Christian meeting or TV program looks exactly like the other, boasting the same things, and trying to get the same money, and the lives of the people listening get emotionally changed for a moment with no lasting growth.
Though many preach about "fulflling your destiny" with all the tricks of the trade, they make no real way to find their true destiny. Jesus said, "This is eternal life that you may know the one True God and Jesus Christ His Son." Truly knowing God as a Person is our destiny. This is why we were created. In knowing Him, we will learn of His true desires and thoughts and ever live to please Him.
Many of today's leaders do not teach of the relationship that God has desired for us which is to be one with Him like a Bride and a Bridegroom. Why, because they themselves have not partaken of this divine truth, and intimacy with God is not sought after or they profane intimacy by making it a formula or ritual to their own ends. Their understanding of true intimacy with God is so lacking and filled with spiritual pride it pushes those hungry for God away. Few or our present day leaders are teaching what God's desire for us as a relationship is to have our souls to gaze upon Him habitually in deep fellowship and love.
The present word of the Lord from the mouths of today's leaders is about destiny, blessings, power, gifts. They sparingly even mention a deep cultivation of the manifest presence of the Lord if they know it at all. It is more hype than substance, more self help sermons than the power of God, and this has been welcomed by a church that has forgotten a God who so desires to be known and to truly reveal Himself to us. I am not trying to be critical of people, just of what we are doing? Why have we forsaken the Lord of the work? Why are we putting the work first and God second? Who has bewitched us in thinking we can do this work apart from His Manifest Presence?
May we return to become a seeking people who destination is not to be rich in this world, or in religious success, but with the true riches of heaven. For those who hunger truly for God their reward is God Himself and they need no other. Jesus taught us that, "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord have we not prophesied in your name, or cast out devils in your name." Jesus replied, "Depart from Me you workers on iniquity I never knew you." God forbid those words would be spoken to our ears!
1 comment:
Thank you Pastor Falcon, I wept so hard when you spoke of leaders always speaking of equiping us for our destiny, finding out what our destiny is, they will be proviing an opening for our destiny, teaching on our destiny, you name it I have heard it everywhere I go.
Until today sunday morning home, yes home with my God, Yahuwah, I thought that my destiny was the ministry that the Father has placed in me, those that I have given birth to. because of the word in me from spending intimate time with Him in His word. But not that and other things are not my destiny as I have been taught. Rather today you shared with me here, it is what I have done since day one of recieving Him into my heart, I fell in love with Y'shua (Jesus)and out of love with man, so much the church called me a rebel and much more. The Holy Spirit revealed Y'shua to me in the Old Testament, He was the rock under Jacob's head before the ladder. The Holy Spirit revealed in that moment in Genesis when the Father said to someone standing in heaven with Him: "Let us make man in our image, wow (a babe) I said is that a angel, He's speaking to? No it was Y'shua revealed by the Holy Spirit. I because I want to stay in the Presence of the Lord churches will always have programs that require me to be there everyday, but the Father told me in this hour that I have to seek His Face so that I won't miss His next move. You are so right, we must have an intimate relationship with even becoming pregnat spiriturlly, as a Bride should with her Bridegroom and that is what is needed in this hour, to know Him: (know= intercourse)causes to continualy Love Him enough not to want or need the love, attention or things of humans, I disobeyed Yah for a leader and I'll never do that again. I will not loose my relationship with Him for a position, title or ordination. I will continue to be with Him and now I know what my destiny is and that is to continue to Seek after, pant after, run down, so that we may know Him and His Way to His Will for His people and Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven Thank you for telling me my Destiny.
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