During my younger days, I remember clearly how my dad would
say things like, “Look at that kid. He now drives a Merc. Wow, he must be doing
very well in business!” The gleaming white Mercedes was Singapore plated, which
obviously added to my father’s imaginable glamour (and perhaps, envy).
Enhancing that vision was the presence of an Indonesian hired hand.
And that kid was our opposite neighbour. We all grew up
together in the same hood. He went to a Chinese vernacular school together with
his two elder sisters while my brother and I attended a Roman Catholic
missionary school.
The penchant of measuring one’s wealth – and growth through
the years – was quite simple. In this material adoring society, growth and of
course wealth is measured by acquisitions. Other than his automobile, there’s
always the house and where it’s located certainly draws up various impressions
of wealth. An overseas education at a ‘famous’ university adds as much glitter
as his career at a choice multi-national company.
A quick glean of his Facebook
profile might tell us even more again – where his annual holiday destinations,
his favourite dining places including the types of friends he hangs out with.
Society has also laid down bespoke rules about fashion as
well. You can tell if a person’s culture is steeped in the old school of
manners and etiquette as much as you can identify the social circle he inhabits
by the way he dresses, the shoes he wears, his choice of jewellery including
timepiece. In the case of a woman, you’d include the amount of bling as well. For
too long now society has valued material wealth as a useful indicator of
someone’s fruitfulness in life. When someone is considered to have had a
fruitful life, society decides that he would have had the acquisitions to prove
it. Let’s not forget too that beyond physical materials; bank accounts
including cashable assets like stocks and bonds as well as business ownerships
and shareholdings, offer just as significant a clue to a man’s worth, so to
speak.
Concurring with society’s way of assessing one’s personal
value – his fruitfulness – isn’t going to get you into trouble. In fact you
could slot in comfortably since just about everyone believes material wealth is
an excellent yardstick. I remember as a youth, spending an inordinate amount of
time worrying if I would successfully acquire my own wealth to tell everyone
else that “I’ve made it.” It didn’t matter what others might have thought but
for me, I had even written down everything I wanted in life.
Spiritual Growth
If only we Christians were as concerned about what’s in our
heads rather than what our eyes see and get envious of. If we could spend a
fraction of our time focused on our spiritual wellbeing instead of getting
worked up about the next-generation iPhone or PSP, we might end up having
lesser problems fronting up to our brand of Christianity. If that’s hard to
believe or accept, get on the Bible and you’ll find it has quite a bit to say
about this topic.
While it’s obviously easier to gauge one’s accumulation of
physical wealth, it’s a little harder with spiritual growth. A person can grow
his collection of cars in his garage or the number of holiday homes he hordes but
when it comes to spiritual development, how do you measure it? How do you
visibly tell? By the number of days he spends in church? By the extent of his
involvement in church activities? By the number of people he brings along to
church services? Frankly we won’t know how but Scripture does offer the most
important standard by which this is possible.
When Jesus said in John 3:7 that, “You must be born again,”
He was parallelising the distinction between physical birth and a spiritual
rebirth. To be rebirthed in the Christian parlance means to accept and receive
God’s salvation. Therefore to be born again might also suggest that we wind
back the clock so we can re-begin addressing our sins and gingerly re-assume
our first steps forward; only this time, we will be carrying our crosses while
walking in and with Christ. This is, in effect, the beginning point of our
spiritual growth.
It’s important to understand right from the beginning that we
grow spiritually in the same way as we do physically. In our spiritual walk we
will encounter challenges that are similar to everything around us.
Circumstances surrounding our everyday lives help shape the manner in which we
mature. That makes things no different to how we accumulate our spiritual
experiences. Like plants, trees and babies, the more we understand what our
lives are about, how they intertwine with our great God, the more assuredly our
maturation process will gain ground.
2 Peter 3:18 tells us that we are to “grow in the grace and
knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” and we are to “crave pure
spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up in your salvation” (1 Peter 2:2).
To put this into perspective, consider the purpose of a
green plant. Is it just to live and then wither and die? If that were the case,
plants will never multiply. If they didn’t multiply, there would never be any
greens in the world. Strangely enough, we won’t survive if there were no green
plants around either. Plant multiplication is God’s concept of what we refer to
as ‘pollination’ where plants propagate but prior to that, plants learn to
survive by finding nutrients in the water they feed on.
They grow roots that don’t only span wide and reach deep but
are also as strong as the “cedars of Lebanon” and they flourish and blossom by
way of the flowers they sprout throughout their useful life. And in so doing
God proves that there is immense beauty in the things that He creates. As He
epitomises beauty in man, He repeatedly does so with the plants and the
fragrant flowers that bloom from them. And like His children, plants multiple
so that their species may survive.
Often the efforts we pour out to help nurture
the plant help us also to witness its growing beauty. Flowers bloom as proof
that God plans everything He creates to be beautiful and in every sense of His
purpose, a good tree will bear good fruit just as a bad tree will bear bad
fruit. And with the beautiful flowers come the pollen grains that God designed
to be carried by wind or water or other means so that they can pollinate and
spread across the lands afar. Plants survive hence through pollination so that
their specie can continue to thrive. In the pollination process the appealing
beauty of fragrant plants attract carriers like the birds and the bees that
then do the work to keep on reproducing so that they survive throughout the
generations.
But so do bad plants.
Bad plants are like weeds; they grow brazenly and out of
control when left unchecked. They’re not good for the environment because they
asphyxiate the good plants around them. They can overtake the whole land and
damage soil integrity. They can ruin good soil, making it unsuitable for
planting. When weeds become seriously unmanageable, probably the only way to
properly get rid of them is to set the whole piece of land on fire – that is
how extensive a stranglehold weeds can exert.
Opposite from where I live is a house neglected by owners who
had basically left it to waste. They may have gone interstate to live with
their son’s family but they had also refused to put it up for sale. Despite
this inexplicable move, no one was assigned to maintain it or its garden. Over
the many months of abandonment, the once prim state garden became a hotbed for
weeds to eventually take over. Inevitably the transformation into a miniature
jungle had begun. Serious undergrowth began to look threatening; alarming the
immediate neighbourhood and heightening fears of hidden dangerous predators –
like snakes – amongst the ten-foot tall weeds. If the owners continue to be
ignorant, the weeds will proceed to take over the derelict house, eventually
turning the whole structure into a complete ruin.
If you can draw parallel between this abandoned house and a
house of worship and then equate weeds to negligence to attend to our spiritual
life, you might then be able to imagine the threats that can bring down a whole
church. A barren spiritual life is one where the weeds of a derelict spirit
have ensured there is no growth to speak of. And when there is no such growth,
there is no life. No life means meaninglessness, and emptiness leading only to
misery and death. Barrenness is when dead men walk like planks of dead wood
lying adrift in water, carried aimlessly through a fast rushing stream. They go
about senselessly like weeds growing with no clear direction. A church without
enthusiasm inculcated by a congregation that does not care enough, does not
love abundantly and that which does not go out of their way to be spiritual
fruitful will surely be doomed to die.
Just as this casts a pall on our church, it is the same
amongst many other churches elsewhere. All of us seem to have lost the emphasis
on real spiritual growth. In its place is an unhealthy focus on a mechanistic
process of regulated churchgoing and mentally moribund affirmations of
doctrinal creeds that more often than not have only ensured the separation of
the Body of Christ through the centuries of denominational differences. The
real fear is that churches are focused on the wrong areas for growth. We don’t
exactly know if this is because today’s congregation is the source of influence
or that churches have led all of us astray on their own but in the end it is
immaterial. What is critical is that we’re behaving like the Pharisees, mistaking
outward observances and meaningless rigid rules for genuine spiritual
upbringing. This short-sightedness means we’re unaware or ignorant of God’s
desire that we develop our individual spiritual lives. The prophet Hosea has
this to say:
“5 I will be like the dew to Israel; He will
blossom like
a lily. Like a cedar of Lebanon, He will send down His roots; 6
His young shoots will grow. His
splendour will be like an olive tree, His fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon.” (Hosea
14:5-6)
As beautiful and poetic as these two verses are, God is
saying very incisive here. He uses words to great strategic effect to say
exactly what He wants to say. If I may commentate here, I believe God will
shower Israel with prosperity, helping it to flourish as beautifully as a lily.
He will do so by enlarging His blessings so that from Him, Israel’s supply
shall always be unfailing. “I will be like the dew to Israel” infers God will
be the very essence of that blessing to His people. It speaks of volumes of
God’s gracious promises and blessed favour upon Israel’s conversion. “Like the
dew” describes the refreshing feeling of presence that copious dews appear to
add sparkle to grass in the heat of summer.
As a symbol of gushing beauty and godly purity, the prophet
Hosea uses “lily” to bring into sharp focus the importance of transforming our
soul in grace. “Cedar of Lebanon” refers to that an unmistakable aromatic
fragrance that is counterbalanced by strength, integrity and righteousness. It
ties in nicely with the sub-phrase, “He will send down His roots” which is an
expression of “deep-rootedness.” Hosea then talks about God’s splendour
likening it to “an olive tree” as a reckoning of its evergreen beauty
regardless of whether it is winter or summer. It is another way of proclaiming
that God’s unstinting presence is what allows us to experience his never-ending
supply of freshness and fruitfulness.
Yet for someone not wholly in tune with biblical versology,
Hosea might as well be describing a short set of biomechanical processes that
God unleashed. But the truth is, as many commentaries have agreed, this is an organic
process that He has pointed out to all of us. It is evident that Hosea isn’t
concerned with merely taking up membership in any particular church; rather he
is amplifying the importance of inner spiritual development, the kind that God
considers sustainable and one that matches His promise to “make things grow”:
“7 So neither the
one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who makes things grow.”
(1 Corinthians 3:7)
As God offers His hand to guide us spiritually, many of us
fail to take up the offer. We seem incapable of understanding what we should
and shouldn’t do in our lives and this failure to follow through with God is
disturbing. No matter how we slice it, either something is horribly wrong with
each of us or we’ve always shuttered our lives from God, refusing Him a
welcomed entry into our realm. This is a terrible injustice to God, shocking
enough to make us think how irrelevant we have become. Consider too how sad it
is when in describing our spiritual lives, all we can muster hardly reflects the
integrity of our relationship with God. When someone asks, we have nothing to
say other than “I’m a Christian” or if you’re a little chattier, you could say,
“I’m a Methodist” or “I’m a Lutheran.”
Still none of these bear any meaningful semblance to God’s
way of describing what He views as important. In Psalm 92, God lays it all out
very clearly to us:
“12 The righteous will
flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon…”
“14 They will still bear
fruit in old age, they will stay fresh
and green…” (Psalm 92:12, 14)
God is making a clear statement here: He wants us to
FLOURISH. Verse 14 uses a phrase to say the same: BEAR FRUIT. Without a doubt
our most preoccupying goal should be to ensure that our spiritual wellbeing
bears fruit. In simpler words God’s greatest interest is in us bearing
spiritual fruit. That’s the same as saying that every acted part of our lives
must be seen to increase the worth of our spiritual wealth. We have to avail
ourselves as an instrument for God to use us productively and to His glory.
Without a doubt therefore, spiritual worthiness is what He looks for in each of
us and in fact it is the evidence of this intrinsic value that will determine
how and when the Lord will set into motion the revival of our church. To
product the kind of godly character God so cherished, His Spirit must work
within us without which we are completely undone.
“16 Ephraim (Israel)
is blighted, their root is withered, they yield no fruit. Even if they bear
children, I will slay their cherished offspring.” (Hosea 9:16)
Even as God tells us He is serious about His children (us,
that is) bearing fruit, why is it then so hard for churches to do something
about this? Why are our churches forever engrossed in issues that have nothing
to do with what God wants of us? Instead what we end up having are church
leaders sweating over attendance numbers and what to do to increase them. We
have churches that pay top dollar pursuing the latest growth techniques that
would get them hitting pay dirt as quickly as possible. We also have churches
that are incessantly worried about fattening the coffers, finding every
conceivable way to bring in more income. Not that any of these is blatantly
wrong though – the concern here is that churches fail to prioritise, incapable
of recognising what God truly wants from each of us and then helping to teach
and equip their members to achieve it. Paul’s prayer for the believers in
Colossae underlines the sheer need to bear good fruit for God:
“9 We continually ask God to fill
you with the knowledge of His will through all the wisdom and understanding
that the Spirit gives, 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord
and please Him in every way; bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the
knowledge of God…” (Colossians 1:9-10)
In this prayer, Paul implores the believers to “live a life
that is worthy of God,” suggesting that while the opposite is unacceptable, it
is hazardously possible if we remain careless, ignorant and belligerent. To
uphold a lifestyle that is abhorrent to God is to live a life worthless to Him,
a life unworthy of God’s attention and a life that is doomed to an ignominious
end. Even as Paul evidently found this to be a problem with the Colossians
then, we too don’t have much difficulty identifying it in our society today. In
fact it’s everywhere around us and frankly you don’t even need to step out of
the church to find examples. Right in our own church, there are plenty of
evidences waiting for us to re-examine at closer quarters, admitting to them
and then correct what is unworthy of our Saviour. When Paul exhorted the
Colossians to live a life worthy of Christ, he basically meant that they should
grow in grace and bear fruit that brings glory to God. John 15 probably
expresses this best when Jesus said:
“8 This is to My
Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourself to be My
disciples.” (John 15:8)
Verse 8 of John 15 probably says it all very well: Jesus
proclaims that bearing fruit that glorifies our Father is to prove our
discipleship to Him. That means spiritual fruitfulness constitutes the one most
important yardstick of a genuine Christian. And so it has to be strange that
many churches ignore its importance. Unheralded as it may be, spiritual
fruitfulness still beats lip-service faith anytime anywhere anyhow. People may
talk loudly about their great faith but without any really showing spiritual
fruit, it’s just talk.
People talk about the decades of membership at their church.
They might even tell you with pride that they’ve been sitting at the same pew
all these years. People might make themselves feel important because they’ve
served peerlessly in certain ministries or led the elders’ council. Without a
doubt some will make certain that everyone in church knows of their huge
contributions to the church’s coffers.
But none of these matter
at all. You can do ANY of these and still be spiritually bankrupt. Just so we
all know – regularly attending church doesn’t make you any more a devout
Christian than walking into a garage makes you a car! I guess this might
shatter some glass ceilings for some of our ‘decent and deeply religious’
pew-warming Christians but the truth upheld by God’s salvation has been missing
in their lives all this while. All because spiritually, many of us are shallow and
lack real definition.
Lifeless Laws
Just as Jesus has laid out the proof, the Pharisees revealed
the incontrovertible fact that laws alone are incapable of saving anyone. Laws
are as lifeless as anything carved in stone. They have no way of animating our
lives in the manner that Christ does. Laws lack emotion, sensitivity and/or
compassion. They have no means of gauging the very sinew of life… which is why
having suffered, died and risen again Christ has paved the way for us to be
able to die unto the law:
“4 So, my brothers
and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you
might belong to another, to Him who has raised from the dead, in order that we
might bear fruit for God.” (Romans 7:4)
Such laws are not just a burden in our lives; they actually
screen us off from the realities that God wants us to see and experience. These
ungodly laws prevent us from witnessing the purpose behind the gift that is the
Son of God Himself. They block us from realising that behind this gift lies the
great importance of bearing good fruit in our lives. And so ridding ourselves
of these laws will pave the way for our spiritual nature to become productive.
When that happens, we can open ourselves to experiencing the positive and
wonderful changes that God promises us. These experiences are most apparent in
any new believer in Christ; for newly minted Christians are more likely than
others to exhibit unfailing inspiration and motivation when it comes to godly
spiritedness; the kind that Paul spoke to the Colossians about:
“6 In the same way,
the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has
been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace.”
(Colossians 1:6)
While the importance of bearing fruit seems more alien to
today’s churches than at any time in the past, it is their common indulgence in
compromises that has been responsible for the current state of affairs. Church
popularity has been on the decline in recent years. Their collective strength
has been sapped by charges of corruption, paedophilia and other criminal
activities. It doesn’t look like much of damage limitation controls exercised
by churches will see them restore much of the power and influence they once
wielded. Nothing can be done so long as churches detract from what God wants
from us and so long as the members are fed a continuous diet of false truths
packaged in ‘interesting’ sermons, we’ll just fall farther behind in our quest
to reinstate our spiritual wellbeing.
As a growing number of churches disembowel themselves from
the truth of the gospel, they have become increasingly busy being
seeker-sensitive rather than trust God to transform lives. As for proof that
God’s thousand-year-old transformation work on His people is now lost and
forgotten, it can’t get any more apparent than this and the reality that while
many churches invest enormous time and effort in not “scaring” people away,
true believers are lost in droves as they come seeking the truth but not
finding any. These are the believers who yearn for a life of spiritual
fruit-bearing but they are also the ones that churches have either chosen not
to invest in or have no inkling how to help.
As these churches
continue to produce sermons shallow enough to dilute God’s supernatural formula
for real spiritual growth, true believers will continue to walk away from them.
It is no wonder that much of their lustre and appeal are lost. Their influence
is slipping away in the midst of congregations that now comprise countless
“converts” as well as those that haven’t while stalwarts wishing to fulfil
their spiritual calling continue to vanish.
How can this be? How true is this? Where’s the
proof?
It’s quite simple—all you have to do when you look at any of
such churches is to ask whether or not they exhibit the fruit that comes from
the Holy Spirit. Don’t be distracted by all the neon lights or hopping and
dancing or the megachurch looks. Don’t get caught up with the great
entertainment value that many of these churches are churning out. Don’t give
too much thought to churches that seem to be everywhere, promoting campaigns to
“win souls” because in the end, God will only assess our spiritual worth above
all else. Of all these sound a tad harsh – or even judgemental – then consider
what God has to say here:
“16 By their fruit
you will recognise them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes or
figs from thistles? 17 Likewise every good tree bears good fruit but
a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit and
a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear
good fruit is
cut down and thrown into fire. 20 Thus by their fruit you
will recognise them.” (Matthew 7:16-20)
Verse 19 says that those trees that fail to bear good fruit
will be cut down and cast into the fire. To God failing to bear good fruit is
as effective as bearing no fruit at all. One or the other case is useless to God
and this verse tells us that they are to be destroyed permanently (‘thrown into
fire’). In much the same way when we plan to cook a meal, we begin by carefully
preparing the vegetables and meat. In cleaning the greens, we strip them of
rotten or spotted leaves. We cut out and throw away vegetable stems that are
blemished or bruised. We do the same to the meat—any part that is not edible or
pose health risks are sliced away and not used in the cooking. Instead all
these unwanted parts are thrown away and never used. They are cast out to the
bin because we have no use for them. We don’t spend any time worrying if we
missed them or not. These verses from the Gospel of Matthew tells us the same
thing—if we are spiritually bankrupt, we are worthless to God and we will end
up “thrown into the fire.”
Although Matthew wrote these verses to refer to Jesus’
warning of false prophets, there is no doubt this piece of truth is applicable
to our topic of choice. Using these same verses, we can apply it to any preacher
whose preaching might be popular or any ministry leader who is supremely gifted
or anyone whose biblical knowledge and memory is virtually photographic. None
of these people no matter how fascinating or remarkable they may be matter
because they do not supersede the question of spiritual fulfilment. They do not
change God’s mind or preoccupation with being spiritually productive.
God measures the worth of any preacher or ministry leader or
any church worker by the spiritual quality that defines him or her including
the positive influence he or she bears on other church members including guests
and visitors. If by their presence others become spiritually improved let alone
wealthy, God will determine them to be of good fruit that comes from a good
tree. If he or she pollinates spiritual wisdom, producing seeds that bear good
fruits amongst others, there is no disputing then that God’s Grace is actively
at work. There is nothing mystical about this. Neither can anyone call this
legalism. The fact remains that this is life; life that is defined by the
kingdom of God; one that Jesus so plainly puts it:
“33 Make a tree good
and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a
tree is recognised by its fruit.” (Matthew 12:33)
An interesting thought comes to mind as I read the above
verse. I’m not speaking for anyone else but myself when I say that I’m beyond
hopeless when it comes to recognising trees. Whether the leaves are large or
small (what else is there to look for??) every tree appears anonymous to me. I
probably can make out one that has a huge trunk and that that doesn’t but trees
are essentially just trees to me but when they bear fruit, I will know what
they are.
Jesus says, “A tree is recognised by its fruit” and I cannot
agree more. An apple tree will have apples when in season and it cannot be any
more different from a tree that bears apricots or peaches or oranges. When I
get to see these fruits and get a taste of each of them, I will know which ones
are great and which aren’t. A tree that is worth keeping is always one that you
know will be one that I can enjoy years of pleasure picking its fruits and
sharing them with others. If you find a green grocer where your supply of
apples has been nothing short of great, you’ll know to continue buying from
him. It is obvious that where he gets his apples lay the best trees around.
Judging from the above verse (Matthew 12:33), obviously Jesus thinks this is
the same for Him too.
Away from Me, I Never
Knew You
It is always sad when we see many of today’s ‘modern’
churches turning a cold shoulder to members who seek spiritual meaning in their
lives. Instead church leaders are driving their ministries towards a dynamic
that is worryingly different to what Jesus talks about. In their pursuit of the
next “cutting-edge ministry,” many churches use technologies to raise exposure
to some sensational new “manifestations of the Spirit” or some super
high-octane worship concert that will lift the roof off the auditorium.
Countless Christian online bloggers and writers have poured words to the same
effect. It all sounds so fantabulous that everything else just feels bland,
meaningless and, well, pointless.
Some might say, “Whatever keeps you excited about church is
great” but if we simply agree with that, then we are forgetting what it is that
God cautions us about – spiritual relevance. So long as we remain irrelevant to
God with our superficial or one-sided theologies, we’re going to forever scrape
the topsoil of all matters considered godly. And with that being the case, we
will be aptly warned:
“21 Not everyone who
says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who
does the will of My Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me
on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your Name, and in Your Name
drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell
them plainly, ‘I
never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Matthew 7:21-23)
As harsh as Jesus might have sounded in the above verse, He
made an important point, saying, “…but only he who does the will of My Father
who is in heaven.” Jesus is saying that unless we do His Father’s will, we will
never have the chance of entering His kingdom. And it doesn’t matter what
prophesies we make, what demons we drive out and the many miracles we may
perform, all in His Name. If we move away from doing our Father’s will, Jesus
says, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!”
It is our Father’s will that our life be one that bears
fruit of the kind He will accept. If we continue to live a life void of
spiritual meaningfulness or lead a church that does the same to its members, we
risk missing out on God’s righteousness. By having no interest in pursuing a
spiritually purposeful life is to shun God and that, as we are told, will bring
untold divine judgement. In Matthew 21:43, Jesus puts it quite bluntly what
will happen if we choose this way of life:
“43 Therefore I tell
you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a
people who will produce its fruit.” (Matthew 21:43)
In the above verse, Jesus was condemning Israel because she
bore no fruit worthy of His Father. This isn’t surprising if we remind
ourselves that God had spent 40 years planting seeds amongst His people freshly
out of bondage in Egypt so that they may be fully prepared and delivered unto
the Promised Land. God had been there all the time, furnished everything that
the Israelites ever needed and He did all this so that the seeds He invested in
would grow and flourish. Considering these efforts, God had rightfully expected
His people to bear good fruit that He could savour but as we all know,
Kadesh-Barnea was the place where the Israelites seriously disappointed Him.
Despite the seeds, God had not found Israel favourable in
His eyes and so all who were 20 years of age and older were to die wandering
further in the desert without any hope of stepping into the Promised Land; all,
that is, except Caleb and Joshua as one of my earlier sermons was about. You
could be wondering why seeds that God had planted did not bear good fruit. You
might presume that since the seeds were from God, expectations of good fruit
should be a matter of formality. Indeed if I were to have a good seed with me
and I plant it and give it everything imaginable to help it grow, it’s not
difficult to understand what my expectations ought to be. If that includes
learning everything I can to make sure that the seed has every chance to grow
into a good fruit-bearing plant, then it’s not remiss to believe that it
should.
If God expects good fruit but the seed doesn’t produce it,
He will make changes. If you follow the Old Testament, you’ll understand that
the choices are completely up to Him. Depending on His will, God can furnish further
chances so that the Israelites can make amends and change or He could easily
throw the hat in and say enough is enough. When Israel and Judah continually
turned their backs on God and worshipped Baal, the Asherah pole and what not
(remember Ahab and Jezebel?), God had had enough and ceded His people into
captivity by Babylonian and then Persian kings. Over forty years in the desert
proved insufficient and so evicted from their own land, God added another seventy
years in the hands of their foreign captors.
The seed of (potential) goodness became the seed of
deceitfulness. For what God imagined us to become, many of us prefer to take a
turn to damnation, doing the things that are abhorrent in His sight,
proclaiming greatness and pride when we should remain humble and offer up glory
to God. In the days of the Sanhedrin, it was plain Jewish pride that
underpinned the complex hare-brained doctrines, embodying austere guidelines
that upheld one’s sense of purity and manners of worshipping. These were
nothing more than thin veneer to disguise the spiritual emptiness that was in abundance.
Jesus obviously saw through all that, as John MacArthur recalled in his book
“The Jesus You Can’t Ignore”:
“As a matter of fact, the whole
theme of the Sermon of the Mount (Luke 6; Matthew 5-7) was a critique of the
Pharisees’ religion. He condemned their doctrine; their phoney approach
to practical holiness; their pedantic style of Scripture twisting; and
their smug
overconfidence. The Bread of Life discourse (John 6) likewise
provoked such a conflict with the Pharisees that most of Jesus’ own followers
became seriously uncomfortable. Many of them stopped following Him altogether
after that.” (MacArthur, J.; ibid., Chap 6: Hard Preaching – Does This Offend
You)
Even as Jesus spelled their doom, weeping over the city of
Jerusalem, John the Baptist, years prior, had prophesied about this, saying:
“10 The axe is
already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not
produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Matthew 3:10)
There it is again: “…cut down and thrown into the fire.” You
cannot get any more foreboding than this. John the Baptist was talking about
God’s covenant people, the descendants of Abraham and the inheritors of the
Promised Land. Yet the nation of Israel was laid threadbare, barren and void of
the spiritual awakening that God had desired of them.
In these thousands of years since, this lesson continues to
weigh in our consciousness. Not producing good fruit remains today the centremost
critical aspect of our spiritual wellbeing in Christ. You may forget everything
else but you cannot ignore what God wants from each of us. Remember that what
He wants, He usually gets. If we dismiss the importance of personal spiritual
building, we also deny ourselves the opportunity for God to nurture our spirit
with His divine wisdom and equipping us with the kind of spiritual disposition
that is pleasing to Him. And the upshot of this denial is that we choose to be
disobedient to God, which is an extremely serious transgression; serious enough
that we will never experience God’s channelling supernatural transference… and
more than serious enough for Jesus to spell out the terrible option:
“2 He [God] cuts off
every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit
He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.” (John 15:2)
Striving for a fruitful spiritual life begins with the
personal individual. It is at this microcosmic level that the wrongs must be
righted, what we’ve avoided doing must be done and what we require to be taught
must, too, be learned. Spiritual security in Christ is about getting ourselves
warded in God’s treatment room so that whatever ills that plague our lives must
be treated so that we can then be healed by His love and remedial supernatural
powers. When every church member willingly receives God’s healing promise, our
church will begin to break free from the bondage that has stunted its growth
for more than two decades. When we focus our spiritual wellbeing towards a
lifestyle that pleases God, we will see our church soar to heights greater than
any of us can imagine.
Like the other churches around the world, we are in dire
need for a major breakthrough; one that bears the good fruit that God desires
from us. Unfortunately over the many years of moral decay, we have lost the
authority to oversee personal transformations. Instead what we’re witnessing
are the effects of worldliness blindsiding, converting and discipling our
church leaders. It’s easy to accuse me of being overdramatic but look around
you. See for yourself that instead of our churches being the leader of
untainted moral authority, we have become a laughing stock in society. It isn’t
just that church congregation numbers are declining but also people are leaving
to become Muslims, Buddhists and others. Of the many concerns about dwindling
membership, conversion to Islam is extremely worrying. The late Leonard
Ravenhill (1907-1994) did not live to see the threat of terrorism and
Islamisation but what he wrote in his famous book, ‘Why Revival Tarries’ could
easily apply in today’s climes:
“The world has lost the power
to blush over its vice; the Church has lost her power to weep over it.”
(Ravenhill, L)
These days it’s difficult to envision the church being in
the mainstay of inspiring the younger generation. It is wishful thinking that
they could bring about constructive impact in the way they used to. In fact
today such influences come not from the church but from consumerism trends that
ride on waves of change, bristling with advanced technology, powerful image
brands and imaginative marketing. In addition, the church has to play a distant
second fiddle to activities that have captured the imagination of not just the
young but the world in general.
Quite apart from sporting and outdoor recreational
activities, online Internet-based social networking habits best epitomised by
the wildly successful Facebook are taking people away from church and the
importance of spiritual renewal. Everywhere around us is the growing evidence
that we have lost control of our lives to worldly diversions. This is a
symptomatic indication that we are about to experience even greater pain in our
future and unless we dig ourselves out of this mayhem, we are going to
encounter God’s displeasure of not listening to Him, not heeding His advice and
not accepting His diktat.
The Americans will also tell us that despite the nationwide
spiritual uprising in the aftermath of 9/11, much of this reformation movement
had now lost its momentum. Christian conservatives across the country are
disheartened at what is happening to their country as they feel the Christian
heritage is fast losing traction. Today New York’s Ground Zero is being
threatened by a sweeping chorus to build a mosque right where more than 3,500
people had perished at the hands of Islamic terrorism. With the tacit support
of the incumbent Democrat Party including the Mayor of New York, there is every
likelihood that this will happen despite mounting opposition from the people at
large.
Over in Illinois and New Jersey, the Islamic movement is
also gathering at a frightening pace, threatening to banish Christian living
and in its place, the final reality of Sharia law beckons. Across not only
America but Europe, Islamisation is more than just wearing burqas and hijabs. It
is also the loss of democracy, humanitarian values, human and civilian rights
and much more. At the centre of all these, the church at large is completely
helpless. Struggling to cope with its own politics and deepening problems, disillusioned
young Christians are leaving their faith behind, to embrace the destructive
Islamic brand of radicalism, honour killings and jihad.
It’s articles like this one that not only tells the story of
where Muslim extremism is taking all of us but also how insipid and cowed
Christian efforts have been to stand up together:
‘Jihadist’ Issues
Christmas Bombing Threat
(YAHOO News)
Saturday, December 25 2010
Washington (AFP) – A “jihadist” in an audiotaped threat said fireworks
displays will set off terrorist bombs in countries celebrating Christmas, the SITE monitoring group said.
The recording, titled, “The Zero Hour Has Arrived,” and
directed to “the unbeliever and Christian countries celebrating Christmas”
lasts one minute, three seconds and bears the voice of a member of the Shumukh
al-Islam forum, said the US-based monitor.
The speaker, according to SITE, said that failure to heed
warnings to cease bloodshed in Muslim countries would result in attacks.
“Your (Christmas) fireworks will act as an alarm for the time
of our devices to blow up—devices that we, not Santa Claus, are going to offer
to you as gifts, to turn your night into day and your blood into rivers,” he
said in a translation provided by SITE.
[…]
It also comes amid Nigeria’s warning that al-Qaeda-linked
militants were likely planning attacks during the Christmas holiday, and the
accidental death of a suicide bomber in Stockholm two weeks ago who apparently intended to kill
Christmas shoppers.
In Australia there are now calls to ban the Islamic extremist
organisation, Hizb ut-Tahrir, because of its divisive attacks on the country’s
democracy at their International Conference at Lakemba on July 4 2010. Rev Fred
Nile MLC, Member of the NSW Parliament and leader of the Christian Democratic
Party (CDP), called on Prime Minister Gillard to ban the organisation and stay
in line with those others who have done so including Pakistan, Turkey, Jordan,
Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Libya. Other than renewing
calls to introduce Islamic law to align Australia with the 60 Sharia Islamic
courts and 1,700 mosques in the U.K. alone, British Hizb ut-Tahrir leader
Burhan Hanif also told participants at the conference that democracy is “haram”
(forbidden or unlawful) for Muslims, whose political engagement should be
purely on Islamic law.
From CDP’s website media release:
“Leaders of the global Islamic
group Hizb ut-Tahrir have called on Australian Muslims to spurn secular democracy and Western notions
of moderate Islam and join the struggle for a trans-Islamic state.
Mr Hanif said, “We should not
be conned or succumb to the disingenuous and flawed narrative that the only way
to engage politically is through the secular democratic process. It is
prohibited and haram.”
He said democracy was incompatible with Islam because the Koran insisted Allah was the sole
lawmaker, and Muslim political involvement could not be based on “secular and
erroneous concepts such as democracy and freedom.”
Rev Fred Nile said, “We must
preserve our Australian democracy and Aussie way of life from the attacks of
these extremist Islamic organisations, which encourage terrorist groups.”
Fred Nile, Christian Democrat Party of Australia
In my periodic search through the Internet for
Christian-based websites, blogs and forums, I do come across numerous people
who yearn for more prayers in their churches but aren’t getting it. This
request is not surprising. If you have been following the news lately, you can
understand why there is a continuing surge for more prayers. Not that long ago,
Southern Arizona’s U.S. Democrat Congresswoman Gabriella Giffords was shot in
the head at point blank range and although she survived and is now in a
critical condition, six others died, and fourteen were seriously wounded. All
these took place at the front of Tucson, Arizona’s Safeway supermarket carpark.
Amongst those who died was a 9-year-old girl Christina Green
who ironically was born on the very day of 9/11. A bright student with an
enormous appetite for a successful future, she never had a chance. Her fellow
students and friends at Mesa Verde Elementary School in Tucson are grieving. In
the words of Jennifer Medina of The New York Times:
“As classes at Mesa Verde
resumed for the first time since the shooting on Saturday that killed six
people, including 9-year-old Christina, the school grappled with how to talk about the tragedy
with the young students here. Many of them have never known anyone
who has died. Now, one of their own had been killed—a loss that was difficult
for many adults to deal with.
In the two nights since the
shooting, nightmares had already interrupted sleep for many of the children—images of
puppies suddenly dying, mothers crossing invisible lines and
abruptly disappearing, or somebody coming to kidnap their friends in the middle
of the day. The impact was raw and deep. Some children screamed and sobbed
inconsolably, while others were stoic, promising their mothers that, yes, they
understood, and, no, they did not need to talk.”
(Jennifer Medina, ‘At Victim’s
School, Shock, Sorrow and Nightmares;’ The New York Times, January 10 2011;
page A17 of the New York edition)
A story such as this one is pretty much standard fare these
days. While it still horrifies to read about them, much less experience it
first-hand, it depicts the threats that are at the doorstep of our lives. You
might think we’re insulated from all these because it doesn’t happen in
Malaysia. You might feel schmuck and comfortable believing that Western culture
is paying the price because of its looseness but we’re better than them. I
won’t be the first to tell you that in Malaysia, we are no different.
On January 10 2011, more
than 100 people gathered outside the Harrison County Courthouse in Gulfport,
Mississippi to pray for families, political leaders and the less fortunate
during the ‘Covering Mississippi in Prayer’ rally. The event was one of 90 to
be held in county seats across the state between January and March. Organisers
with the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board said they hoped to get 10,000
people to sign prayer pledge cards but already have had requests for 40,000
instead. The events were intended to “call attention to and focus on the need
to pray for the state, for one another and for the country,” according to Jim
Futral, executive director of the MBCB.
“The journey across the state to these prayer gatherings
began Monday, January 3, and will continue through Tuesday, March 29. While we
will be praying for ourselves to find a relationship with God that is both
cleansing and encouraging, we will also be praying for the leaders of towns and
counties. We will be praying that there will be many precious souls that will
come to know Jesus our Saviour and Lord.”
Despite requests for
more prayers in churches across the United States and even in light of the
frightening times we live in, deacon boards and pastors alike do not appear to
be responding. In actual fact what we are witnessing is pastoral ministries
becoming more concerned about losing members than reinforcing the spiritual
values of those in their present congregation. The idea of multiplying, adding
more new ones, and shoring them in from the cold is, to them, more important
than helping to uplift the spiritual worth of those who are already in their
midst, who are basically crying out for help. From the Internet, we read of
people, particularly the young and vibrant Christians, longing to bring
newcomers to Christ through something spiritually meaningful but they also feel
rebuffed by the church’s attention shifting from spiritual development to merely
adding to the flock.
Finding converts is
difficult enough because they are few and far between. Having willing friends
who are ripe for conversion see the spiritual barrenness in our churches cannot
possibly be acceptable and it is this issue that continues to be one of the
most glaring problems even amongst new Christians. Churches must seek to
understand that there are people who have a strong personal desire to
experience the Spirit of God but plainly don’t know how to. They seek to reach
God in a new and deeper – more meaningful – dimension in their lives. They
hunger to know Christ better, seeking relationships that mean something to
them, that drive home new and lasting values and replacing whatever that never
worked in their past lives.
The Fruit of God’s
Spirit
Now that we understand the need to be spiritual fruitful, what
would this fruit of God feel like? And what will this new and more fruitful
life look like for each of us? Is it something we can tangibly experience and
revel in? What is this fruit that so pleases the Lord and brings great glory to
Him?
From what we understand, being spiritually fruitful isn’t
something we can achieve on our own. It does not come from us. The only thing
we can (and should) do is to express a genuine desire to want it. But even so
the power of revival and transformation does not reside within us. Spiritual
fruitfulness – the very fruit of God – is a product emanating from the Grace of
God and it is the very essence that we welcome to begin working within us:
“22 But the fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things
there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23)
To create in us the fruitfulness that God desires requires
the Holy Spirit. Scripture reveals that the Spirit dwells within every true
Christian, always ready to shine for Christ and given the chance, will
unfailingly glow for the illuminating glory of God. It is the Holy Spirit that
not only defines the fruit of God but also expresses true love for Our Father, for
our friends and neighbours, work colleagues and peers, love for those whom we
care for, love for our families and even love for our enemies and anyone who
thinks the worse of us.
Love inspired by the Holy Spirit is so overpowering and
all-consuming that without it, no religious observances are worth anything. Religiosity
without love is useless. It is as pointless as selling sand to an Arab or ice
to an Eskimo. Between strict religious observances and a powerful display of
love, there is no comparison – love simply transcends all. Anyone who is
proficient in Scripture is obviously impressive. It might be a neat party trick
but it flatters to deceive. A person with expansive biblical knowledge might
make some of us believe that he has the necessary godly attributes or that he
can dig deep into the mysterious recesses of Christian life but unless love is
in his spiritual wellbeing, there are no claims he can make to earn his place
in the kingdom of God. The same applies to those who perform miracles or preach
in Jesus’ name. Or lead a ministry so successfully that church attendances
often double. All of these efforts will come to nothing if there is no evidence
of love in all that we do.
No love means no joyous heart. No joyous heart means there
is no meaning despite whatever forfeitures we make. That would be similar to making
offerings with a heavy and unwilling heart or giving tithes without
experiencing even a tinge of personal sacrifice. In other words we might as
well not do it because rather than giving lovingly, we burden ourselves with
listlessness and an overwhelming sense of reluctance. We are reminded
henceforth by Paul’s advice to the people of Corinth:
“3 If I give all I
possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have
love, I gain nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:3)
Love doesn’t just add to our spiritual wealth; it underpins
everything about Christ and all He wants us to be. Love is the cornerstone of
the Christian ethos. It is the most prominent characteristic of our Christian
life. Above any other religion, love – and every extension of it – fully and
properly defines Christianity. God wants love to be the most outwardly visible
signature in our daily lives so that wherever we go and whomsoever we are with
it is suffused in our character and wellbeing. Love should be the most
characteristic feature of every church so much so that it inspires us to uphold
Christ as the centrepiece of our congregation, accepting of all types of
people, merciful to all and sundry and forgiving of everyone’s transgressions. Love
is the very thing that fully displays God’s grace for all to see, experience
and savour. As a personification of God, the disciple John used love as the key
means to identify truth from unbelief:
“7 Dear friends, let
us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born
of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love, does not know God,
because God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8)
Hollywood has enough movies in decades past to suggest that
love overpowers all. So do many classic novels, songs and overtures written
over countless centuries by some of the best known writers, poets and lyricists
of all time. Even if it sounds bold or brash so many people over hundreds of
years can’t be wrong. We are impoverished by the fact that in not learning to
love others, we do not, in fact, know God. Irrespective of the religious
persuasions we go by or how rich a heritage we claim, knowing God requires that
we learn to love others.
In plainer English, you will only know God if you learn to
love with all your heart. What this means is that there are no gifts of life
more important than love. There is no amount of biblical expertise, prophetic
talents, healing ability or remarkable speaking of tongues that can eclipse the
power of love. And this is because when love abounds, God is signalling that
His presence is in our lives. Contrasting this are churches that seem to have
lost the idealism of embracing love. So much goes on in churches today that
have very little to do with love. Little wonder that there’s hardly any real
spiritual growth these days from churches.
Sure there are churches that have become monstrous in size,
financial wealth and membership. There are also churches that appear to have
enormous outreach, organising missions to go beyond and unimaginable live
concert-style praise and worship sessions with standing room only. But what
many of them preach isn’t love. Compelling members to keep giving and giving
isn’t exactly what love is about. Using Scripture to focus on prosperity and
little else isn’t teaching about love. Bigger buildings and a fatter bank
account aren’t necessarily a show of love either. Creating cult personalities
with celebrity status amongst church leaders isn’t what humility, much less
love, is about.
In fact we can apply all these to not just pastors and
church ministers but also anyone in the congregation including ordinary
churchgoers, learned theologians and lay leaders too. What we boldly say to all
is that we must “grow in the Lord.” Above everything else, it is time we learn
to love one another, learn to increase our lovingkindness so all may share fruitfully
in the spiritual wellbeing so desired by God.
If that sounds like simple common sense to you that is
because it is. Then it will bewilder you to know that many of today’s churches
do not view this with any great concern. The problem is that the issue of love
is insignificant in their eyes. Churches will spend more time delving into
‘more complex’ theological issues and secondary matters that sound impressive
because of their abstractness but they are so removed from our daily live
issues as Christians. We wonder then why many Christians complain that their
church life is uninteresting, meaningless, impractical and/or unrealistic. Now
you know why – when we consign the subject of love to the backroom, we are
telling church members it is not an important issue. Never mind that love is
what God wants us to embrace and propagate, churches these days seem likened to
go in different directions; directions that indicate strongly that they have
“majored on the minors” and developed a religious culture completely at odds
with the teachings of Christ.
The problem with all these is that the wrong impression has
begun to be the ‘real face’ of Christianity simply because too many churches,
that refuse to change, are on the same agenda. People are becoming increasingly
convinced that this is the genuine brand of Christianity. It’s not the one that
Christ has commissioned us to spread but the one that bears no association to
Him, no connection with God’s version of reality and the one that is really
losing membership in droves. And because of this many churches have become
pharisaical in nature as they unwittingly separate people from the issues that
they ought to face and deal with. As radical as this may sound, the truth is
there are churches around that have positioned themselves to be the irrefutable
moral authority over those they seek to rule. Here’s how…
A Ruse and a Sham
Assuming you have been an established congregant and
therefore know your church well, here are some questions for you:
- Does your church accept anyone – and I mean anyone – past its doors?
- Other than the usual normal Sunday services, how about important high-profile events like Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?
- Would your church welcome beggars or homeless hobos?
- How about you… would you personally sit next to someone who doesn’t appear to have had a bath for weeks? Or someone who smells like he’s been drinking at the pub before he came to church?
- If you knew someone with a shady history or a highly suspicious or questionable occupation, would you still welcome him to your church?
- Would you worry if his influence might rub off on some of the ‘weaker’ members of your church?
Let’s crank up the volume a little more…
- Would you distance yourself from someone you know to be a prostitute who decides to seat herself next to you in church?
- Would you be afraid of being mistakenly associated with an ill-reputed person in church just because you were seen talking to him?
- If a drug addict were to ask you if he could attend your church this Sunday, would you offer to pick him up and take him?
- Do you think your church elders are comfortable with making friends and fellowshipping with homosexuals and lesbian couples? Would you bring them to your praise and worship nights?
- What if your own out-of-town uncle joins you in church but in a noticeably inebriated state? Remember, this is your uncle. When fellow congregants begin staring at you or your uncle – and some definitely will – would you be embarrassed or shamed by his company?
These are no doubt difficult questions at least for some of
us but they reveal much of the malignancy that plagues today’s churches because
they simply contradict Jesus. We know that Christ shed His precious blood for
everyone on earth. In the Bible, that meant prostitutes, tax collectors,
fishermen and journeymen. We know that He never turned away anyone who had come
to Him sincerely for help. That included a member of the Sanhedrin who was
captivated by what He preached. Yet we act completely the opposite and still
pin the Christian label proudly on our chest for everyone to see.
This strangeness is very evident as we rejoice whenever any
unbeliever repents and accepts Christ and usually the more suppressed, dire and
treacherous that part of the world, the greater our jubilation tends to be. We
have great desire to watch videos of people experiencing breakthroughs that
transform their lives to Christ. We love listening to testimonies of remarkable
miracles that God worked in people we don’t know. We care not what others say
when we stand up and cheer because someone – anyone – proclaims that he is
healed by God’s miracle. Many of us also jump at the chance of evangelism work;
making time and opportunity to talk to friends and share testimonies.
There are ample examples of how God’s love does reach out to
those who desire to know Him. And often when that happens, you’ll also hear of how
God’s outreach can make for a joyous and frequently tearful experience because
of its profound power to move and transform. It can happen right in church. It
can happen in a home where the sharing takes place. It can even happen in a park.
While all these are taking place, we wonder if our churches really reflect our
Saviour’s heart. Because for transformations to occur, it has to involve people
outside our realm of Christianhood; meaning people of virtually all walks of
life. We will have to be seen mingling with them, sharing the Word with them,
praying with them; even embracing them. Given that this would be the usual
modus operandus, will our pastors and indeed even our affluent congregations actually
welcome with open arms any such people into their churches?
Anyone? Yes, anyone; even when you know they are the worst
possible sinners you’d ever meet in your lives. Think again because I’m not so
sure myself.
The other day we had a
guest who visited our Sunday service in church for the first time. None of us
had ever seen or met her before. The purpose of her visit was not that she was
looking for a church to go to (being a devout Christian, she has her own
church) but to find a smaller church with a stronger sense of cosiness and
fellowship for a friend of hers. The interesting thing she added was that her
friend didn’t find the warmth of acceptance at her own church. Being far
bigger, she conceded it was probably more ‘impersonal’ and therefore less
welcoming.
We’ve all come across stories like this one where big
churches have congregants that break into smaller cliques that can leave people
like this visitor’s friend stone cold waiting for someone to come and speak to
you. In my years of having frequented other churches, I too have experienced
how the welcoming party was more chilling than standing in a freezer room.
Although not new, churches with completely divergent agendas
have been making the news for all the wrong reasons. They are seen to adopt
techniques to entice the younger generation from other churches, baiting them
using live hip Christian music as their hallmark attraction. At the centre of
their agenda is a desire to mimic Western-style mesmeric worship gigantism in
the form of huge megachurches where the church is identifiable not by the
presence of Christ but by the charisma of a leader with egotistical celebrity
proportions.
The lure of all these are of course, commercial exposure,
media attention and expansionism leading to money, rather than the endeavour to
build spiritual worthiness that pleases God. You smell serious problems when
the image of the leader takes on centre stage instead of Christ. You know spiritual
renewal isn’t happening when everything in the church revolves around
compelling members to give their life savings away. You’ll certainly feel
uncomfortable when everything that Christ promised you doesn’t seem to be
taking place in that church. That’s when you know the pointlessness in knowing
every scriptural verse in the Bible when we do not live the Word and
demonstrate love for man (sinners, if you like) the way Christ asks us to.
So many churches. So many different motives. Most of them don’t
appear to live by Christ’s maxims. Many of them also limit the use of the
spiritual gifts to and for “their own kind.” People in church seem bent on only
wanting to relate to those they are comfortable with while others are kept out
in the cold. We may claim to accommodate anyone and everyone but the sad
reality sees many with lame excuses, professing they are too busy attending to
other matters.
If this is what is happening, what may I ask is Christianity
about? This could well be the same question outsiders are asking when they look
at the shameful behaviour of many practitioners of modern churches these days.
While it is not difficult to find the Bible talking about such behaviour, the
greatest ruse of them actually has nothing to do with New Age philosophies or
paganistic occult practices. They might be easy targets but the behaviour we
increasingly see in church happens from within:
“4 For certain
individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who
pervert the grace of our God into a licence for immorality and deny Jesus
Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.” (Jude 1:4 NIV)
It is stupefying that we can continue representing and
preaching Christ when our collective actions suggest that we alienate more than
embrace His ideas. In fact we are more like strangers knocking on the door to
His heart of love. When we have the destruction coming from within, it is far
harder to identify let alone stop because it’s a lot easier for anyone to
suggest that “the problem” isn’t with them but with those who like me simply do
not have the depth to understand their approach. Love for those who are in the
realm of “the other” remains out of reach. They are not the integral part of
many church’s portfolios. And they tell us that strong racial and/or
socio-economic segregationist overtones are the way to offer a “better
tailored” message. If you think this is only happening in America, think again
and look at how vernacularism is also affecting local churches around Malaysia
and Singapore.
Jim Cymbala wrote in his book, “Breakthrough in Prayer”
that:
“Preachers have told me they
are happy to start another church downtown for the ‘poor and downtrodden’ but they can’t
risk lots of members leaving if their own doors open up to everyone. Others tell me that ‘twice a year we join
together with minority churches in a big rally.’ ‘Seeker-sensitive’ technicians
have even asserted that it’s impossible to have a growing church unless you
focus on a homogenous target group.” (Cymbala, Jim)
Though shocking to read, it is unfortunately true.
Fashionable megachurches are turning on the style so favoured by the youth of
today that it’s difficult to see Christians of other age groups, preferences
and flavours making their spiritual homes there. This movement masks an
alienation process that is defined by the presence of a huge marketing behemoth
driven that is necessary to build a cash-rich empire. While that all sounds
fine, it is doubtful that it is spiritually bound in Christ. It is difficult to
know who or where to point the figure at – the youthful but influential
congregation or a leadership that is perceptive enough to know something about
the demographics of the iPhone-wielding high income youth but let us remind
ourselves that none of these are worth considering if Jesus’ most important
work is excluded.
Look around us for better examples of integration. Football
matches attract multi-racial gate attendances probably better than some of our
churches. So would most of the popular Hollywood movie attendances at the
cinemas. Narnia’s Voyage of the Dawn Treader attracts a much larger
cross-section of people than what our churches are capable of doing or are
willing to do. Collegiate programs offering sports scholarships in countries
like America and Australia are meant to attract anyone with the talent and
potential for success regardless of creed, colour and religion. But when Sunday
morning arrives, there will be at least some churches that will make do just
the opposite, exemplifying the kind of partiality, segregation or exclusive
preferences that run counter to what the world teaches us about multiculturalism
and what Christ encourages us to be accepting.
Even as the FIFA World Cup brings everyone together no
differently than the hottest Hollywood movie can, church culture seems
ambivalent at best and distantly cold at worst. Sports can bring people closer
but why are our churches beginning to separate God’s people instead? It
shouldn’t surprise us that people are increasingly thinking that many church
ministries practise exclusionism as a means of locking in their preferred
crowds and leaving out those they don’t fit their profile for the sole purpose
of filling their cash tills. Megachurches regularly conduct programs designed
around youth activities to keep the youth at bay and not wander off to other
(churches). Churches that dream of being mega sized are all thinking along the
same lines also. There is no shadow of doubt that these efforts have proven
successful in filling the pews with young and excited youths but there is also
a worrying potential too.
Some churches may feel they are doing the right thing. If
the people are happy, what can be wrong with that? If we can bring in the youth
in droves, how can that be wrong? Something this good can’t possibly be wrong!
Wrong, it can. The Bible is chock full of warnings of
apostasy in the last remaining days and the Book of Jude offers graphical
detail when it describes godless men:
“4 For certain
individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped
in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a
licence for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.”
(Jude 4)
Jude 12 amplifies this even more so:
“12 These people
are blemishes at your love feasts, eating
with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They
are clouds without rain, blown only by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit
and uprooted—twice dead.” (Jude
12)
Set against these warning brushstrokes, the two biblical
issues that we are prone to forget or underestimate reads as follows:
“A tree is recognised by its
fruit”
“Whoever does not love does not
know God, because God is love.”
Many of us find it unthinkable that there are churches that
don’t exactly roll out the welcome carpet for people who fall out of their
target groups. It might even be a bit harsh to suggest that evil and hypocrisy
lurks hand in hand but remember, they call themselves “Christian churches” even
if they practice the very things that Christ doesn’t and the very issues that
He had warned us about. Contrary to Christ’s lessons, there should not be any
divisiveness. After all Christ taught us that we are all equal and that His
arms were always open to all and sundry; so why the preferential approach? Why
are there churches that continue to ignore those whom Christ had also died and
risen for? If you are a true Christian at heart, reading this probably bruises
your heart as much as it does mine.
You could make the assumption that the Spirit of God is
present no matter which church you choose to go to but you assume that at your
peril. As important as it is in our lives, it isn’t always so. Across the land
and traversing the many parts of our living world, there are churches that shun
the misfortunate, the destitute, the social misfits, the outcasts, the
incarcerated, the unclean, the meek and even the humbled. And as many of us are
familiar with, there is a growing trend of new churches that are sticking their
necks out mainly to appeal to the present generation of youth and not much
else.
If we are ever curious why spiritual revival is slow going
or that it appears held back, look no further – these are the kinds of acts
that don’t sit well with the Spirit of God. Sure each of us can name obvious
sins, sins that are visible and very ugly in anyone’s book; sins like
pornography, corruption, murder, rape, terrorism, paedophilia, drug trafficking
and all levels of immorality including our fetish for material glamour and cult
celebrity status. But how do we rate something that is “less obvious”; something
that doesn’t headline our newspapers but nonetheless wrecks our churches with
barren, bigoted and spiritually bankrupt leaders? How does the Spirit of God
dwell in a church that is bereft of spiritual worthiness simply because it
fails to be truly loving and caring?
If we ever need to be reminded, 1 John says it best:
“20 Whomsoever
claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and
sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And He has given us this command:
Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.” (1 John 4:20-21)
Now that we have gone past the first decade of the new
millennium, it’s easy to just breathe a sigh of relief that we didn’t end up
destroying our churches. We could have but by God’s grace, we didn’t. Consider
that in the year of 2011, we have so much to contend with from within our own
churches. Never mind that we are dealing with a more serious level of terrorism
and Islamisation (often the two are bundled together); we now have to cope with
spiritual hardness and bigotry and these are only two of numerous other
problems that beset the churches of this new century.
As unbelievable as it seems:
“The shambolic state of evangelism (I do not call it Christianity any longer) is best described by pointing readers to
Cornerstone Church in Chandler, Arizona where Charlie Brown appeared on “stage”
at Christmas and the 5pm service on February 1 is cancelled because the gods of
the NFL take precedence over the God of the Bible.”
I wonder what Christ would say to churches led by gay
ministers or clergy leaders who embrace Islam and welcome Muslim leaders in the
worship of their god within His sanctuary or Christians who think that it’s all
about “fairness” when we welcome the building of mosques in the heartlands of
Christianity. Right-minded Christians
can’t possibly think this is progress!
Let us imagine for a moment that the greatest gardener of
all time, God, is tending to His little acre containing many different but very
colourful flowers. Here is a garden patch that showcases the most beautiful
sight of all… with rhododendrons, hydrangeas, daffodils, tulips, roses,
magnolias, carnations, sunflowers, lilies of the valley, orchids, begonias,
cannas, ixoras, honeysuckles, daisies, gerberas, milkweeds, chrysanthemums,
black-eyed susans… You name it, God’s got it.
And each flower brings to the garden its own spectacular
shape, form and colour and for reasons only God truly knows, all of them blend
together in perfect harmony. Each flower blooms flawlessly and together they
produce a blend of richness unseen anywhere outside the garden. Looking as far
and wide as our eyes can, the splendour is the same… perfection as God defines
perfection. God’s vision is for such plants to be flourishing together and
multiplying for the eternity of their kind.
Now think of each of ourselves as one of these many plants
in God’s garden. Think of how we are designed to bloom and reflect God’s
desire. Then think of how we grow in prosperity, attaining spiritual contentment
that can only add to His glory. Think too of how each of us plays an integral
part in God’s larger-than-life plan; that even as small we individually are we
are all important to Him. And as we bring individual flair and colour to God’s
kingdom, we are to do our part to exalt His Holiness.
I hope you can somehow find yourself (or your church) in and
amongst this article. I also hope that it will spur you to join us and gather
those of your kind together, find the time to be quiet before God and then humble
ourselves in His presence. Let us ask Him to expunge all that is unkind,
hurtful and conceited from within each of our hearts and minds.
Let us remind ourselves that above everything else that may
be right to do, the most important of them all is to bear fruit that is
pleasing to God. Only then can we seek His face and revive our purpose in our
personal walk with Him.
Shall we pray now…
“Lord, strengthen me in the inner man [Ephesians
3:16]
That I may be rooted deep in love and founded
secretly on love. [Ephesians 3:17]
Let me grasp Your love—the breadth and length
and height and depth of it [Ephesians 3:18]
That I might be filled through all my being with
the fullness of God, [Ephesians 3:19]
That I might become a body wholly filled and
flooded with You, [Ephesians 3:19]
That I may “know” You and the power of Your
resurrection, [Philippians 3:10]
That You might grant me a spirit of wisdom and
revelation, [Ephesians 1:17]
That the eyes of my heart be flooded with light,
[Ephesians 3:18]
That I might know the greatness of Your power in
me, [Ephesians 3:19]
That I may learn to sense what is vital and of
real value, [Philippians 1:10]
That I may abound and be filled with the fruits
of righteousness, [Philippians 1:11]
That You will keep and protect me from the evil
one, [John 17:12]
That I may know Your will, [Colossians
1:9]
That I may be strengthened with all power, [to
exercise] every kind of endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks. [Colossians
1:11-12]
In Jesus’ most holy Name, we humbly ask and
pray.
Amen.”
January 24 2011
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