One Day?

 "The Scripture you've just heard has been fulfilled this very day!" Luke 4:21...."We expect the King to come one day, but not today." Chris Tiegreen

The Jews of Jesus' day prayed earnestly for the Messiah to come. When He actually did, many would not believe it. Many more could not believe it. Somehow, the people of God seem to harbor great hope about His fulfilling all His promises at some future time, but we struggle to believe He will do so now. He will come through for us "one day," but we can't really believe that it will happen "today."

We believe in miracles, in spiritual transformation, in revival and awakening. We are sure that all will be happening all around us....one day. But not today. Today, with its circumstances and impossibilities is too daunting for us. We have great faith for what we believe He'll do at some future time, but not in what He might do, could do, right now. We temper our expectations. We tell ourselves we have to be realistic. We believe in a supernatural, wonder working God. We just don't believe we'll see the proof of it in our day to day lives. We don't really believe we'll see that proof today....even though we know the depth of our need. It seems that we're afraid to believe for now, that we're sure that if we do so, we're going to be disappointed. So we live with faith in an Almighty God that we don't really think will show HImself to us.

Examine our gatherings for what we call worship. We come to worship a God that we believe is all powerful, is greater than our deepest need, biggest obstacle, and most dangerous adversary. We ask for and lift up prayers that seek healing, deliverance, reconciliation, and an outpouring of His Holy Spirit. Yet how many of us believe, expect, that we'll experience any of that which we believe in as we come together? We know He can do it all. We believe there will be a day and time when He will do it all. We stumble at believing that He would do it now.

I don't have all the answers for why this is so, but there is something I ask you to consider as to why we seem to experience so little of Him in our corporate worship. When Christ announced to the Jews that He was the promised Messiah, the majority of the Pharisees, the religious leaders, rejected Him. It wasn't mainly because they didn't believe Him. Nicodemus admitted to Jesus that they knew that He had been sent by God. A good portion of the Pharisees simply could not release the power and control they had over the Jewish people to Him. They could not release their "worship" of the One for whom they looked, to that very One when He arrived. Might we be guilty of the same? Might we too fear taking our hands off of our worship of Him, because we don't want to lose control of what we say is all about Him?

Forgive my ramblings. These questions I ask of you, I ask of myself as well. Francis Chan asked if we would truly desire to be part of what a typical first century Christian church was? A church where the Spirit really did reign, and the people were swept up in worship, and living out that worship that day and every day. Do we really want to be part of such a church? Do you? Do I? Or are we content to just wait for it to be so.....one day?

Blessings,
Pastor O