Missing

"Speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." Ephesians 5:19-20...."What's missing in our worship today is the confession of sin, and the subsequent cleansing, healing, and forgiveness." Larry Crabb.

Some years ago, Larry Crabb wrote a book titled, "Real Church: Does It Exist? Can I Find It?" He wrote it in response to not only his own frustrations with what he was seeing in his corporate worship experiences, but from what he was hearing from many church leaders, especially pastors. Some said that the sameness of their worship had brought them to the place where they felt almost bored with the predictability of it all, and how little the anointed presence of God seemed to be in their midst.

Let me say that Larry Crabb is a lover of the Body of Christ, but he makes points that can't be ignored. I had a conversation with someone the other night who was asking "what can we do to get this generation of young people to want to come to church." I know she meant well, but she was voicing something that is common to far too many today; the idea that we, in our own strength, can make the church more attractive to the unbelieving. Truth is, we've been trying to do this for a long time, and it's not working. Whatever we do to attract a crowd will only result in our having to do something better in order to keep them. The only thing that will draw both the believing and unbelieving in is the powerful, anointed, and totally free presence of God through His Holy Spirit. And that my friends is very scary to a people who have grown used to setting and controlling the direction of what we call worship.

Think on what Crabb says in the above quote. To what degree are we witnessing such a move of the Spirit in our worship these days? When was the last time we saw and experienced such a move of God, where people were so deeply convicted of their sin and need that they cried out to Him in confession and repentance, and where lives were cleansed and souls were saved, marriages and families healed? I have always been awed by the accounts of Jonathan Edwards, one of the central figures in the Great Awakening that swept 18th century America, as he preached his famous "Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God." It was said that so heavy was the conviction upon his hearers that they were grasping columns in the church because they were sure the floor they stood on would collapse and they would fall into hell. Could such a sermon be preached today? Certainly such a title couldn't be used. No one wants to think of the God who hates sin and all that it destroys, not least of which is the creation and souls He so loves. We don't like to think of that kind of God....but the Bible doesn't hesitate to tell us that judgement is very much a part of who He is, though tempered by His mercy and love. Could such a message of fire, fueled by His Spirit, be preached in our churches today?

Someone said that in the early church, the cross, the resurrection, healing, and miracles were central. They gathered in expectation of not only beholding His glory, but being transformed by it. Where is such expectation in us? How have we drifted so far from it? I have a quote in my prayer journal from Mark Buchanan. He writes, "When heaven breaks in, all hell breaks loose." Perhaps this is one of our great obstacles to experiencing the kind of worship, the kind of church Crabb speaks of. If God truly would break into the midst of His church, the enemy, in response, would surely break loose all hell in order to try and prevent it. The revival, the awakening we say we want will always come with a cost. Satan will fight a move of God with all he has, and it can be messy, very messy. Yet he will never win that fight if we are determined to be the church, the Body, He has called us to be.

It was said of the Israelites that when they fashioned the golden calf while Moses was on Mt. Sinai, that they were not rejecting Him as God, but fashioning their God in an image more in line with their imaginations. I think in too many ways, we've done the same. John Eldredge said that he wanted Jesus, "the real Jesus." I think there is a growing hunger for the real Jesus, the real Holy Spirit, and the real Almighty God. May our hearts cry, "Maranatha," come Lord! Come quickly!

Blessings,

Pastor O