Heart Tracks - His Testimony

"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." Ephesians 3:17-19...."How can the Bible promise things that we never experience in real life? But are you willing to consider that the Bible is accurate and the Church has domesticated us to the point where we doubt our power?" Francis Chan

After pastoring for three decades plus, I think I came to have a pretty common view as to what constituted a "healthy church," not to mention what brought contentment to a pastor's heart. Some years ago I heard a young pastor bring his report to our district's annual convention. I remember him (proudly?) saying that his church was raising a lot of money and had "plenty of people." From his perspective, everything looked great. I don't say any of that in judgement. I've had the same attitude myself. Yet just a couple of years later, his picture changed. Underlying issues, problems, and yes, sins, rose to the surface, and suddenly, the finances shrunk along with the number of people. Not long after, he resigned. From pastor to people, we tend to see things in a fellowship as "good" when all is going well, and "bad" when they're not. That's human. Our problem is that we don't really understand what is truly good, and we're very reluctant to admit to the presence of that which is truly bad. We measure and evaluate with the same criteria as does the world. We see and live on the surface. We don't see what lies underneath, and equally, we don't know the power and life available to us from above.

In an age when pastors are trending more and more towards being CEO's, rather than shepherds of His people, it is easy to exist on the surface and fail to recognize the depth of the need around or within, or the power and ability of our God to meet that need. So the church, which is to be a testimony of His power and presence to the world, ends up looking very much like that world, and captive to the same disease of sin as it is. Broken marriages and families are just as prevalent in the church as in the world. Addiction to pornography, alcohol, and various drugs and stimulants grows at frightening rates. Depression, despair, hopelessness, all are regular experiences for too many of our people, including pastors and their mates. In short, we are more powerless than powerful. If we read and believe Ephesians 3, its plain that this is not God's purpose for His church and people. How could we be living so far from that purpose? How could we be so powerless when all the power of God Almighty has been placed before and in those who are His? Someone said that in light of all that Christ died and rose to give us, isn't it the greatest of scandals that we live as we do? In light of who He is, and who and what He created us, His church, His people to be, are we, as individuals, families, and fellowships, living out that scandal?

Paul's prayer in Ephesians 3 was that His people, His church, would be filled with "all the fullness of God." And there lies the problem, the scandal. We are filled with so much that is not Him at all. Ambition, greed, jealousy, lust, love of comfort, complacency, and.....self. We don't walk in His fullness but full of ourselves instead. The cost of this is showing everywhere. Yet it can change. It must change. It begins at His cross. We come to it with all that we are, and are not, and we nail all of it to that cross. In the Old Testament, offerings were placed on His altar, and the priests applied fire to the offering in order to consume them completely. At the cross, the same is to happen with the offering of ourselves. God's holy fire falls upon the offering of ourselves and consumes us. When that happens, we can say with Paul, "it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." All that is not Him is burnt up, and only He remains...in His fullness. We become who He made us to be. We now live in His power, and as overcomers. We face problems, we have problems, but we're captive to none of them. And we're no longer a scandal. We're His testimony, giving witness to His resurrection life. . Which do we want to be; a scandal or a testimony? Which is your life and mine?

Blessings,
Pastor O