http://youtu.be/4V-JQ7UUVg8 What church looks like without the Holy Spirit.

Waiting to believe, I wrapped myself in nothingness thinking to make myself comfortable.  Then I saw the shadow of that cross, lying dark and dead upon the ground, moving with no sound, it threatened to make me miserable.  Walking against the waves, my legs are cold and waterlogged, my fear complete as I’m frightened by the thoughts of the waves not parting, trapped forever in my slavery or certainly slain in attempted surrender.  What is a man to do who refuses to believe that redemption has come?  Then I remembered His peace, and thought, “what if I cannot remember my freedom today while besot by the world’s consistent barrage of dilemma after travesty after attack?”:  Who is to remind me that I am safely hidden through Christ in God?  Where are my exuberant Brothers filled with encouragement and wisdom, where are my Sisters to remind of His peace?

We have forgotten that this is a battle and that for the victorious, vigilance is a demand not a choice.  We have forgotten what empowers the movement of the Church, we have neglected monitoring our grieving of the Holy Spirit, we have turned the churches into meeting places for self-help mantra specialists, having caved to the demands of a sensory fulfillment population.  Let us remember that we were adequately warned in many of the epistles, but since we have neglected our disciple studies we are ill equipped with preparation.  The Church has been remanded to an inadequate position of man’s words forgetting that the Kingdom is OF POWER, not of word.  The power is the secret.  Find the power find the authenticity, find Jesus, find relationship, endurance and fulfillment.  WE cannot heal, save, break captives free and cause radical change without the HOLY SPIRIT of GOD.  Pastor Francis Chan has done enormous work in writing on the Forgotten God, where he clearly establishes the circumstances and causality of the Churches’ current impotency.  Something must be done and it will not be resolved by the ideas of men, but by surrender to the Holy Spirit and a return to the things we did at first as a church.  The way forward is only found in humility, study, prayer, love and obedience to the directions of our leader, Jesus Christ, not by some man’s clever intentions to develop a newer, better church.

How about going out in your own neighborhood, knocking on doors and finding those people who need Jesus?  When I express this idea, I immediately become persona non Grata within my own worship circle.  Pastors have actually gone out of their way to slander my name, sending elders to rebuke me and argue the principles of their anointing.  How about going and finding someone that is hungry and feeding him or her?  Have we been reduced to looking at them from our car windows and joining in the worldly proclamation of “get a job” or subscribing to the unholy religions that claim they are suffering from  the sins of their past lives, so they deserve their lot in this life?  Gathering together in a different style or manner will not overcome the corruption and disobedience of our own hearts.  We will simply be a group of people comfortable and content by meeting with other, holy than thou believers in a smaller group, yet still utterly powerless.

I submit that unless we get out on the street, where it is dangerous for Christians and mimic the walk of Jesus, the Apostles and other Holy Spirit filled believers then we are unlikely to meet the Holy Spirit for this is where He resides.  Certainly He lives in each of us, sealing us for eternity, sanctifying us for a time when we will look directly into the face of God, but it is the power of the BODY to which I am referring.  The Church is OF POWER not of word.  Power is never demonstrated by sitting still, it requires motion.  We can sit in our comfortable houses, breaking bread with other like-minded believers and this still will never spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the waiting lost.  Discipleship is demonstrated love and belief in Jesus Christ the King of Kings.

Father, let us open the doors of the church and bid the Holy Spirit come in to sup with us.  Let us once again be filled by Spirit, empowered, determined to endure in our ministries for a lost world that is so loved by God.  Let us flee from the foolish patterns of plastic worship.  Give us the power of YOUR WORD to spread the Gospel and the knowledge of the Truth.  Let us heal the lame, set the captives free, support the widowed, sick, orphaned and lost with the abundance brought through a belief in Your increase, Authority and Grace.  Let us dispel the things of this world within the Body, keeping our vessels pure for the filling of Your Almighty Spirit.  Let us forget about our boredom, replacing it with a willingness to serve.  Forgive me my trespasses as I learn to forgive those who trespass against me.  Let me not justify my own slander, contempt, anger or judgment but show them how to free of these trappings through relationship in Christ.