It is becoming more and more difficult for Christians to maintain compassion in this world simply because we are bombarded with so many emotional stimuli. We no longer hear of “wars and rumors of wars”; we see the actual combat on live TV. Our newspapers are so filled with crime, violence, and corruption that we bypass the front page and turn to the comics or the sports page-and sometimes the crime and violence are even worse there! We have desensitized ourselves. We are no longer our brother’s keeper.¹

This ties in very well with the TV fasts Chris, Kelly, and Julie are all taking (and that I do without really calling it a fast). I’ve never thought of our media this way before, but I find this statement very true.

¹ Wiersbe, W. W. (1988). Prayer : Basic training. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale.

How differently might we live were we to really believe this message? Would we live as we do today, almost like everyone else around us, just slightly more spiritual or pious? Or would “the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one” because he knew “he was numbered with the transgressors” (Luke 22:36-37)?

Aside: Some may find amusing the fact that the next verse quotes the disciples saying they have two swords among them and I have that number as well, among several practice swords. I don’t think Jesus’ words here are literal, though; rather that we should have a war-time mentality towards our use of resources.

I know I’ve already asked several questions, but they all really lead to this one: What would the world look like if all the Christians lived on mission? What would happen if we really lived what the Bible teaches? Maybe we do, and I’m just missing it? I don’t think I am; I think we, as a whole, are not living as we have been taught. So what’s it going to take? Natural disasters? Economic disasters? Persecution? All these except persecution have happened. This same pattern is found throughout the old testament, as well. If it takes persecution, it’s coming. If our lifestyles have been an attempt at holding back the floodgates of persecution, we might as well give up now. It’s coming, and we might as well start living as we should have been all along. “All to Jesus, I surrender all….”

Judas Iscariot is an example of what can happen when people half-heartedly follow Christ and are not fully trusting Him. I fear that our churches may contain many people who are professed Christians but who have never been born again through faith in Jesus Christ. Judas was not committing gross public sins. I am sure he was highly respected by his fellow apostles and by those who followed Jesus. But Judas was a counterfeit; his ministry was only a cover for his sins. We have every reason to believe that, like the other apostles, Judas performed miracles and preached sermons; yet he died and went to hell. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness’” (Matthew 7:21-23).

Finally, Judas reminds us of how close a person can come to the truth, and to salvation, and finally be lost. If any person ever had the privilege of knowing Christ, it was Judas; but it did not lead him to salvation. Judas heard our Lord preach, saw Him perform miracles, and even lived with Him and handled His finances; yet Judas Iscariot died a lost soul. John Bunyan expressed this awesome truth at the close of his Pilgrim’s Progress: “Then I saw that there was a way to hell, even from the gates of heaven….”

Judas went out “and it was night.”

“While you have the light, believe in the light, in order that you may become sons of light” (John 12:36).

Wiersbe, W. W. (1988). Prayer : Basic training. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale.

In The Master Plan for Evangelism, Robert Coleman describes the method Jesus used to proclaim the gospel and lead his disciples. Reading through the gospels, one can clearly see the simplicity and truth of the approach Coleman describes. Jesus’ approach involved prayer, calling people to repentance through the message of the gospel, living closely among those he discipled, teaching them by example and then sending them out, time and again to practice what they learned from him. This model was practiced by the early Church in Acts. In those days churches met in homes, synagogues (when possible) and town meeting halls, but buildings were very unimportant for the mission of the Church.

In contrast, churches today are centered around the buildings in which they meet. “Community,” if it exists, generally consists of once- or twice-a-week meetings generally centered around “fellowship”—which generally means a few minutes (if any) of real spiritual discussion dispersed amongst topics of political, business, or other natures. Prayer is often relegated to “prayer meetings” and prayer on Sunday mornings rather than a 24×7 way of life. The need for repentance is forgotten as we want all to feel welcome and not condemned. In other words, the Christians in churches today segregate their spiritual lives from the rest of their lives almost to the point of extinction. Of course, this statement does not define all Christians today, but it does define a vast majority.

How can the church today become the Church that Jesus wants? To understand that, we probably should go back to where things began to go wrong, and that takes us back to Constantine. That’s a bit too far to cover everything, but suffice it to say that once Christianity and the world agreed to get along, Christianity and the Church began to become little-”c”’s; they became less than what they should have been (1 John 2:15-17).

We live in a society and world that encourages working outside of the home (sometimes at distances of forty or more miles), both parents working and convenience and speed over simplicity and hard work. Our lives are generally spent with the people we work with and the nuclear families we come home to, when they haven’t been fragmented. Worst of all, most people describe themselves as “spiritual” even though they can’t quite describe what that means consistently and use it really as a way to try to shut up evangelists. This society is a poison, and we are told in scripture that we are not a part of it, but you would be hard-pressed to find many Christians who do not join in with society (John 17:16-19).

The church’s current attempt at a solution has been to try to meet people where they are and not demand the rigors of the life Jesus described of believers: “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:25-35). Again, calls for repentance are almost unheard of today. If they do go out, they are few and far between or softened so as not to offend. Some people, both inside and outside the church, think that real believers no longer struggle with sin and thus have no need for repentance. Those who hold such a view are foolish, and we should so reveal this foolishness by openly repenting and calling one another to repentance. One need look no further than many biblical heroes for need further evidence: David and Peter, James and John, Jonah, Abraham, and countless others. We need to repent and turn again to the Lord. “A broken and contrite spirit [He] will not despise” (Psalm 51).

Most tasks in the church today have fallen to paid staff and a handful of volunteers. Most believers today are expected only to come once a week, help out financially, possibly bring a friend, and possibly contribute in some way to the many programs created to replace the original form of discipleship. All these allow us to become more and more disconnected from one another, as well as Jesus Christ, which should be our primary goal (Phil. 3:7-11). Again, this isn’t true of all believers, but the stereotype sadly fits a majority.

Programming has so permeated the minds and hearts of Christians that we can hardly think of anything else. Ask anyone who confesses they don’t like programming what we should do instead, and they will come up with more programs, though usually very different from the current curriculum. Now, programs have their place. A good many services could not be performed without some level of administration; however, these should never be the ends for which we strive to honor our Lord.

We need much more than good ideas. We need more than a man’s vision. We need more than careful planning. We need faith. We need belief. Though this may at first startle, a church with four quadriplegics with real faith and persistent prayer is worth more than ten thousand able-bodied men and women willing to fall in to listen to a sermon, shake a few hands, teach a Sunday School lesson, and maybe cook a few meals. (And who’s kidding who; very few of us could even claim that much activity in our churches.) The Lord does not want Marthas but Marys [1] (Luke 10:42).

Does this mean we should completely stop all programs and works as a church? By no means! However, we must each and everyone realize and cling to the truth that God has bought us with the price of his very own Son. We are not our own, and He has given us an example to follow: discipleship. We are to go and make disciples before all other activities. That does not mean we go and bring someone to the church. That means we go and introduce them to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to the Lord Jesus Christ, their only hope of salvation.

Our petty cares and concerns have overwhelmed us. Our current recession fills the minds of most. Why? What could possibly concern us? All we have has come from the Lord. He gives, and He takes away. None of your concern will do you any good. It’s been paid for, and your eternity is secure. Go and make disciples. Go and meet with the person that sits in the pew next to you. Go and meet with the person who sits down the hall from you at work. Buy the beggar on the street dinner and sit and talk with him while you eat together. Share the Lord and all the good things He’s provided you. If those people don’t go to your church, who cares? We should consider our churches less and the Church more. We belong to a kingdom that is coming and is within our hearts even now, not to the domains put in place by men.

That all sounds well and good, but how to implement it? Yes, that is an excellent question. You see, ever since becoming a believer, I have wanted someone to show me how to transform into this life I’ve described above. I found that somewhere along the way, this training and teaching was lost. We’ve moved to a primarily academic study of God via catechism and Sunday School classes with little “show and tell” of how to really be a Christian in your community. Missions training tries to prepare people for this, but often they have so little time that their methods seem a bit forced and programmed. Long-term, foreign missionaries have to learn this, but they do so as part of their integration into another culture and can’t quite adapt it when they return… or so it seems.

I believe some members of the older generations who remember what it takes, what it looks like to really love your neighbor daily. In my lifetime, I have learned how to be more and more private and to keep my comings and goings to myself and my friends. To tell me to “go and love [my] neighbor” probably looks a lot different to me than it did to my mom and dad, and the same is likely true for them. Older men and women should share and teach younger men and women. We must once again join and be apart of one another’s lives.

1. We must begin to earnestly pray and fast (Isaiah 58). The most important in the life of believers and the body is prayer. God gave us this most wondrous gift to commune with him, and we sorely need to turn first to prayer in all things. We generally turn first to our thoughts and plans, then to prayer. We need to become a prayer-first people. Many already do this, but they should speak up more often to remind us. Everything we do should be preceded, covered over, and followed up with prayer. We should even consider a 24-hour prayer chain. We should also seek to pray for and with the lost and their needs. This is one way we can reach our community and our neighbors who might otherwise take no interest in Christ. However, prayer here is not enough. With prayer, we must provide action. We must pray, then we must act on those prayers to help all we can to find the Lord.
2. We must repent and expect revival by faith. Reading through Church history, revival always follows repentance, not the other way around. However, churches today seem to think that throwing a revival will lead to repentance. We think that “good preaching” will lead to repentance, even if the need for repentance is not preached. We must preach repentance and the need for repentance. This will be hard at first and may even require exercising church discipline, but through preaching the Word, committing to one another, sharing in humility and vulnerability, and trusting one another will get us there. Yet even getting to that point will be difficult. Our church struggles desperately with gossip. I know far more than I should and the people who should be told directly are not confronted. Pride runs rampant in the hearts of many, and false humility is sowing seeds of destruction for our fellowship.
3. We must pray over, identify, and put to use the gifts of the Holy Spirit given to every believer. Every member of the church has been given gifts with which to serve the body. In their giftings, each is a voice of authority, some for teaching, some for administration, some for prophecy, and so on. Yet how often do we ignore or try to silence those because we either don’t recognize their gift or don’t like what is said. We need to help each member discover and find a way to serve based on the gifts the Lord has given each person. We need to listen to them and give heed to their direction, which is from the Lord. Leadership positions should not be assigned because we need to fill it; leadership positions should be recognized based on what people are already doing.

We have a mission to make disciples. We do not have a list of action steps telling us in exact detail how to do so, but we do have the wisdom and experience of godly men and women who’ve tried some things and learned some things from the Lord which they could impart to others. We’ve tried programming, but programming always feels like programming to the recipient and not like the genuine love of neighbor that is needed. We must come together in prayer and discipleship, both within and without our church, and spur each other on towards the image of Christ in us.

Footnotes

In the early days, this worked wonderfully. As with any church league, the players were rougher and less skilled than players in other leagues I’d played in; yet they were generally more mouthy. A few players tried the rules and found themselves kicked out of the gym, and I believe one was removed from the league altogether. The total number of infractions, however, was small.

Fast-forward a few years. I suppose the men running the league decided they didn’t like asking people to leave the church. Maybe that sounds funny to many of you, as well. So instead, the games got rougher, more mouthy, and less fun. The last game I played in, the refs called a technical on one of the opposing players then called so completely in that team’s favor because of their whining that one ref came over to me and told me that he didn’t call a foul on another player that had smacked me in the head “because we had gotten the ball back.” Really?

I believe this pattern to be indicative of the American Church in general these days. No one is willing to call fouls or ask people to leave. At some point, we decided turning people away or calling people out was not good for PR, so we stopped. Now we face a church age in America where most claim to know Christ and expect eternal life, as well as their “best life now” without really understanding the other side of Christ’s message: “In this world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33).

We must once again call fouls and, when necessary, even ask those who really don’t belong to leave, lest the entire church body is brought down. Many will think this harsh, but what options have we? To this we are called, are we not, to teach and preach the whole gospel?

That isn’t inherently bad so long as you then go out and live the gospel. But how many “Christians” today do that? Too many people with an icthus on their cars drive like maniacs and “revenge drive” when cut off in traffic. I’m perhaps blind or cynical or both, but I just don’t see it that often, even in myself. That troubles me.

Wiersbe again here:

 

Suffice it to say now that a true disciple is not a reservoir but a gushing fountain, an artesian well of spiritual blessing. He does not live to get; he lives to give. What he receives from the Lord, he shares with others; and in sharing, he receives even more. He is careful to guard the precious spiritual investment God has put into his life, but he also invests that treasure in the lives of others.

 

Wiersbe, W. W. (1988). Prayer : Basic training. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale.

Amen? So what’s happened? Why? Why you? Why me? Where is our love for Jesus Christ?

I sometimes get the impression that some zealous Christians today are so concerned about guarding the Word that they forget to obey it. They think they are serving God by their “holy crusades” of accusation and attack, crusades that are not always based on truth or motivated by love. I recall with a sad heart a young man who used to stand at the steps of our church building and pass out literature that condemned certain schools and preachers. I asked him why he didn’t pass out gospel tracts to lost sinners. When we asked him to go away from the church building, or else to come in to worship, he shouted: “I’m a fighting Fundamentalist and I don’t care who knows it! You people are not preaching the truth!” I appreciate any believer who wants to defend the faith, but his belligerent attitude made a mockery of the faith. The best way to defend the Bible is to practice it. Wiersbe, W. W. (1988). Prayer : Basic training. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale.

Now, I like to think of myself as an equal opportunity offender. I tried to pick on everyone above, but if you are upset that I missed you, please comment, and I’ll throw your group into the mix. Seriously, though, I’ve noticed that when you work through serving together with someone who may not see things eye-to-eye with you, a lot of the academic details fall away and you find yourself not so far away from agreeing with your once-nemesis. It’s the label (e.g. denomination, political party, doctrine name) that divides more than it is the truth.

So let’s begin to get back to the practice of the gospel and take a holiday from arguing our fine doctrinal points. Certainly, continue to study and to learn the truth of God. Never cease from that precious duty, but don’t let it alone define your faith.