The churches that fail God also fail in the
Chapter 8
The churches that fail God also fail in the
worship
Until we all reach the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature from the fullness of Christ; so that we may no longer be children tossed about, carried about by every wind of doctrine, stratagem of men who use cunning to deceive the cunning of error, but speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head, that is, Christ, who whole body, well coordinated and united among themselves by all the joints that help each other, according to the activity belonging to each member, receives its growth to go building yourselves up in love. Therefore, I say and urge you in the Lord: that you no longer walk as the other Gentiles do, in the vanity from their mind, having their understanding darkened, strangers to the life of God due to the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardness from his heart.
untilwealreachunityinthefaithandintheknowledgeoftheSonofGodandbecomemature,atainingtothewholemeasureofthefulnesofChrist.Thenwewilnolongerbeinfants,tosedbackandforthbythewaves,andblownhereandtherebyeverywindofteachingandbythecunningandcraftinesofpeopleintheirdeceitfulscheming.Instead,speakingthetruthinlove,wewilgrowtobecomeineveryrespectthematurebodyofhimwhoisthehead,thatis,Christ.Fromhimthewholebody,joinedandheldtogetherbyeverysupportingligament,growsandbuildsitselfupinlove,aseachpartdoesitswork.SoItelyouthis,andinsistonitintheLord:youmustnolongerliveastheGentilesdo,inthefutilityoftheirthinking.TheyaredarkenedintheirunderstandingandseparatedfromthelifeofGodbecauseoftheignorancethatisinthemduetothehardeningoftheirhe
Many people who feel that they 'were born in the church' and many who they simply take the church traditions for granted never they stop to think about why we do what we do in the church and we call it worship. They may be unaware and even it is possible that they do not value the type of Christian that Peter describes as royal priesthood, holy nation and purchased people.
Allow me to propose then, the question that so many people with a religious background they never dare to ask. What is the true definition of the Christian church? What are the purposes What are the basics for which the church exists?
Now, let me respond.
I believe that the local church exists to do as a body what everyone a believer should do individually; that is, worship God.
The church exists to display the excellence of Him who called us from the darkness to his marvelous light; exists to reflect the glory of Christ shining in us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
I'm going to tell you something that will sound strange to you. Even to me too. it sounds strange as I say it, because we are not used to to say it in our Christian communities. We are saved to worship to God. Everything that Christ has done for us in the past and everything what we are doing now leads us to that purpose. If we deny this truth and we say that worship is not really important, we can blame ourselves for the way of thinking that prevails in many Christian churches. How can the church of Jesus be a school? spiritual when most people never graduate from the first Grade? That reminds me of the old joke about a man who... he was asked if he was well-mannered. "I should be," he replied, "I spent five years in fourth grade.
But there is nothing funny in the confession of any man or woman. he says that he should be a good Christian and still isn't, despite having spent the last nineteen years of his life in second and third degree of the Christian life. Where in the Scripture does it say that the Christian church is dedicated to ensuring that all its members remain. static? Where did the idea come from that if one is a Christian and relies In faith, does it not need to grow? On what authority do we affirm that we should not worry about Christian maturity and development spiritual?
Ask the people in the church why they converted and him they will answer: "In order to be happy, happy, very happy. All those who they are happy, say amen.
This condition is not something isolated. They are present throughout America and beyond. I suppose that all over the world we are very busy evangelizing and bringing people to the first level of life in the
spiritual school. It seems that there is a widespread and accepted idea, according to which we can leave to the believers in the first degree until the Lord, come back and then He will give them authority over five cities.
Well, those who know me know that I don't say these things. about the church trying to look smart or mocking the church. I don't say them either to seem holier than others. We live in a time when the Spirit of God tells us: How genuine is your concern for the lost? How honest they are your prayers of concern for the church of Christ and its testimony in the world? How much agony do you feel in your soul for the pressures of this life and modern society in relation to well-being spiritual of your own family?
We will do a lot of damage to the church and to those we love if we don't We recognize the terrible times we are living in. Are you so naive enough to believe and hope that everything will be the same week after week, month after month, and year after year?
It is likely that we know our country's history much better. than the rest of the world. But we would do well to remember history and the final destiny of Rome which was one of the most civilized empires never known, and it fell like a gigantic rotten tree. Rome it still relied on its military strength and externally looked powerful but it had collapsed internally. He enjoyed food and drink. boundless, there was fun through the circuses and the coliseum. They also had passions, lusts, and unrestrained immoralities.
What was the great army that managed to overthrow the Roman Empire? Rome fell before the barbarian hordes of the north: the Lombards, the Huns and the Ostrogoths, a people who didn't even care about footwear the Romans. Rome had become fat and weakened; it was neglected and carefree. Therefore, Rome died. The Roman Empire in the the West ended when the last emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed in the year 476 AD.
The tragedy that happened to Rome within is the same kind of threat that can harm and endanger a complacent church and mundane. It is difficult for a proud and carefree church function as a spiritual, mature, and worshiping church. It always exists the imminent danger of failing before God.
Many people loyal to the church, to forms and to traditions. they deny that Christianity shows any kind of flaw in our lives. But it is the internal bleeding that produces the death and ruin. We could be defeated at the moment we We bleed too much inside. Remember the expectations. What does God have in relation to the Christian church; that is, the believers that form the invisible body of Christ. The revealed plan of God it was never that Christian churches degenerated to the point of function as social clubs. The communion of saints that The Bible advises never to depend on a variety of social connections. that are promoted in churches in these modern times.
The goal was never for the Christian church to function as a forum. in which current events are discussed. God did not plan to have a popular magazine that would serve as a textbook and provide the platform from which a secular debate on a topic will be launched. You may have heard me talk about the drama and the performance, about the hypocrisy of appearances. If so, you do not it will surprise when I declare without fear of being wrong that the objective it has never been that the church of Jesus Christ becomes a theater religious. When we build a sanctuary and dedicate it to the worshiping God, are we obligated to give space in the church to that those who are dedicated to entertainment show their talents little professionals?
I can't believe that the holy, loving, and sovereign God who has given us a plan of eternal salvation based on the sufferings and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ may feel pleased when His church dedicated to these shows. We are neither sufficiently holy nor wise enough to argue against the many
assertions found in the Bible that teach the expectation of God towards His people, the church, the body of Christ.
Pedro reminds us that if we are believers who value the work of Christ in our favor, we are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a special and unique people in the eyes of God. Paul told the Athenians that an effective and obedient believer is a son of God who lives, moves and is what he is in God. If we are willing to confess that we have been called to come out of the darkness and to manifest the glory of Him who called us, we should also be willing to take the necessary steps to fulfill our supreme calling like the church of the New Testament.
Doing anything less than that means failing utterly; it is letting down. to our God and to our Lord Jesus who has redeemed us. It is to fail us ourselves and our children; and it also means failing them miserable form of the Holy Spirit of God that came out of the heart of Jesus to do in us the works that can only be carried out for God through a holy and sanctified people.
In this global concept of the Christian church and its members that There are two ways we can fail God. We can disappoint him as a church when we lose our testimony as a body. Generally, that failure is linked to a failure as individual Christians.
We look around us and see each other, and then we are arguing one of the oldest of all arguments: 'Well, that kind of failure certainly could not happen between us." If We are concerned Christians dedicated to prayer, we will remember a pattern.
When a church weakens in one generation and fails to fulfill God's purposes, his next generation will turn away completely of faith.
Thus occurs the decline in the church and thus comes apostasy. This is how it is. the foundations of faith are denied and thus visions arise as well
liberal and uncertain about the sound doctrine. It is a serious and tragic matter the fact that a church has the real possibility of failing. The point of failure will come when it is no longer a Christian church. The believers those who remain will know that the glory of God has departed.
In the days of the exodus of Israel, God granted a visible cloud by day. and a pillar of fire by night as a testimony and evidence of its glory and its constant protection. If God were still using that type of signals to manifest your presence, I wonder how many churches would have the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.
If you have any type of spiritual discernment, I don't need to do an effort to communicate that in our generation and in many communities, small and large, there are churches that exist only as monuments of what they once were. The glory is gone. testimony of God, of salvation and of eternal life is now only a Uncertain message. The monument is still there, but the church has failed.
God does not expect us to give up, to accept what should not be, let's consent to the wrong in the church and condone whatever it may be passing. God expects His children to measure the church with the parameters and the promises of the Word of God. Then with love, reverence, prayer and the guidance of the Spirit of God, we must dedicate ourselves patiently and carefully to the task of aligning the church with the Word of God. When this begins to happen and the Word of God takes its place of the priority that corresponds to it, the presence of the Holy Spirit will begin to manifest once again in the church. That is what my heart longs to see.
The second way in which one can fail God is related with the individuals who fail him. God has determined His purposes in the creation of every man and woman. He wants us to experience the new spiritual birth. He wants us to know the meaning of our salvation and that we be filled with the Holy Spirit. He wants us to let us reflect the glory of the one who has called us to his marvelous light.
If we fail in that sense, then it would be better if we had never... born. The facts are clear. After we are born spiritually, there is no turning back. We are responsible and we must to give an account. It is absolutely tragic to be a barren fig tree, that it has an external appearance of life, with leaves and branches, but never produce fruit. It is terrible to know that God had the goal of reflecting His beautiful light through us and still having to confess that we are useless, we are defeated and reflect nothing.
Friend, be fully assured that we will be aware of our loss. We will be fully aware of that. The most important thing alarming and terrifying about our condition as human beings is the eternal consciousness that God has given us. God granted us a sensitivity, a consciousness, a perception and an understanding that they are exclusively human characteristics; it is about the capacity to feel and understand.
If we had not been given that kind of awareness, nothing would affect us. why we wouldn't be aware of things. Hell wouldn't be hell if it weren't for the conscience that God has given them men. If humans simply fell asleep in hell, hell certainly would not be a hell.
My brother and sister in Christ, always give thanks to God for the blessed gifts of sensitivity, consciousness, and the ability to choose, that He has granted you. Are you being a faithful believer in the site what has he put it in? If God has called him to come out of the darkness to his light, you should worship him. If He has taught you that you must to manifest the virtues, characteristics, and excellence of the Lord that he has called you, so you should worship him with humility and joy, with the brightness and blessing of the Holy Spirit in your life.
It is sad when human beings do not express themselves with joy toward God in the place He has determined for us. Even we allow insignificant things and minor incidents affect our communion with God and our spiritual testimony in for the one who is our Savior.
On one occasion I had the opportunity to preach on another pulpit and After the service, we went to a restaurant with the pastor. A man. and his wife approached our table and stopped to talk for a moment. "I really enjoyed listening to you, Mr. Tozer," he said. "It was like in the old days." There were tears in his eyes and sweetness. in his voice as he recalled a small incident that had happened to him it happened in our church years ago. "I was foolish and decided to leave; today I had the opportunity to remember and recognize what I have been. "losing," he added. Then he apologized and they said goodbye.
The man was fully aware of the consequences of wrong decisions and hasty judgments made without guidance from the Spirit of God. I know very well that I was not talking about my sermon or my preaching, but of the faithfulness to the Word of God. I was speaking of the sweet and satisfying communion that exists among those who They love the Lord and were also talking about the loss of something internal. and beautiful that only reaches us when we obey the revealed truth of God.
There is no limit to what God can do through us if we we surrender and live in purity, worshiping Him and manifesting His glory and your faithfulness. We also need a clear awareness of what the sin and impurity cause around us. Sin does not recognizes no kind of limits; does not operate exclusively in certain groups. Wherever you live, in the best neighborhoods of a city or in the countryside, sin is sin and where there is sin, the devil is opera and the demons participate.
In this sinful world, it is necessary for you to ask yourself what is making with life, the light and the spiritual consciousness that God has given him Given. How are you with God regarding the friendships you have, the pleasures to which he dedicates himself and each of the details that make up your daily life? In the modern world, psychologists have been saying for several decades that we will certainly not have many problems if we can reach a point where religion no longer "bother" or "disturb" us. We are told that we will be able to dissipate
most of our personal problems if we manage to get rid of them of the complexes that guilt produces.
I feel grateful that God made us beings with consciousness. eternal and that He knows how to care for us and guide us in the way suitable. People call me to give them guidance and advice spiritual. But the truth is that I can't do much for them. When someone reaches the point of submitting and obeying, God has promised that he will give that person all the comfort they need.
After I arrived in Toronto, a cultured and attractive young woman asked for a appointment to see me in my office. Upon arrival, we talked for a while minutes to get to know each other a little; then, she told me the reason why the which was in my office. She told me that she was feeling troubled by the homosexual relationship he had with his roommate. He also told me that he had already spoken with other professionals about it. regarding. I had the clear impression that he was waiting for me to assure him what he was doing was acceptable in our days.
On the contrary, confront directly. "Young man," I said, "you are guilty of sodomy and God will never approve that nor will He provide comfort until you turn away from your sin and seek forgiveness and the "the Lord's cleansing." "I think I needed to hear that," she admitted. As Christian minister and counselor, there was no possibility that I he will comfort and support that woman; he could not alleviate the pain of guilt that she was experiencing within her inner self. It was necessary for her that would suffer until the moment of the decision when he would confess his sin and immerse themselves by faith in the fountain of cleansing that is full from the blood that flowed from the veins of Emmanuel.
That is the remedy, it is the comfort and the strength that God has given you. promised to those whose conscience and sensitivity leads them to repentance, forgiveness, and integrity. God assures us of many ways that the people who worship him will be a purified people, a people that delights in the spiritual disciplines of a life that pleases him to God.
A person who has found the blessings of purity and joy the Holy Spirit will never be defeated and a church that has discovered the delight and satisfaction of a worship that springs from The automatic form of love and obedience to God can never perish.