Am I drifting from God?

Jeremiah 2:4-13
4 Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. 5 Thus says the Lord: What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves? 6 They did not say, "Where is the Lord who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us in the wilderness, in a land of deserts and pits, in a land of drought and deep darkness, in a land that no one passes through, where no one lives?" 7 I brought you into a plentiful land to eat its fruits and its good things. But when you entered you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination. 8 The priests did not say, "Where is the Lord?" Those who handle the law did not know me; the rulers transgressed against me; the prophets prophesied by Baal, and went after things that do not profit.
9 Therefore once more I accuse you, says the Lord, and I accuse your children's children. 10 Cross to the coasts of Cyprus and look, send to Kedar and examine with care; see if there has ever been such a thing. 11 Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for something that does not profit.
12 Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the Lord, 13 for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water
God asks us hard questions here. What do you find in the LORD that caused you to desert HIM? What was wrong with God’s character and competence that the LORD was not worth making your ultimate concern?
Now God is talking to HIS people at a time of backsliding and unbelief. The LORD is speaking to us on one of those days when we have been living out our unbelief much more than our faith. Perhaps it has become more than a day. Maybe, it has become a month, a quarter, or even a year. Normally we slip step by step backward and suddenly find ourselves in a spiritual place that is a land of drought and deep darkness.
Maybe today you find it hard to relate to this passage because today you have been living mainly by faith. You find it hard to imagine because the last month, quarter, or year has been one in which you have seen your faith grow. It is difficult for you today to even imagine backsliding into a dark spiritual place. Yet, be aware that only by guarding ourselves against falling into such insanity can we avoid it. The history of God’s people is that we a prone to eventually drift away. So this passage is a good reminder to be careful to maintain your faith and not take it for granted.
God spends most of his time talking to the people of the nation. He sees that the loss of faith is ultimately one that takes place on the level of the individual heart. While political rulers, priests, and prophets all hold great responsibility for encouraging idol worship, neglecting a call to prayer, and failure to proclaim God’s word, this does not excuse the people themselves for their deserting their Divine Savior who redeemed them. We can never blame leaders for our failures of faith. They are responsible for their sins and we are responsible for our sins.
Now the United States is not Israel. That is important to remember since we have had times when we see ourselves in that role. The Church is spiritual Israel. No national state is now the chosen people but rather the chosen people are of called from all nations to form God’s nation, the kingdom of God.
But, with this reminder it would be good to take note that the United States as a culture is moving from being a society dedicated to a Christian vision of God based on the Bible to a generic god of our own creation, an idol that justifies all our actions. The reason our moral and ethics are changing is because our faith is changing.
What evidence is there that this is the case? Here are just a few signs of the times.
Gallup reports that from 1948 to 2009 the percentage of people who identify themselves as Christian has dropped from 91% to 77%. In 1948 on 2% of Americans would say that they were not religious at all and that number is now at 12%. This is the fastest growing social group in the nation. The percentage of Americans identifying as Protestant or another non-Catholic Christian religion has been declining since the mid-1960s. When Gallup began tracking religious identification, the percentage of U.S. adults identifying with some non-Catholic Christian religion was routinely in the high 60%-low 70% range. The percentage fell below 60% for the first time in 1979, and since 2000 has been between 55% and 57%. This means that a faith that represents strong biblical principles founded on the reformation is declining. Faith in the Bible being the inspired word of God in which every word can be trusted to be inspired has declined from 38% (average in 1976-1984) to about 31% today (average from 1997 to 2007). All of these surveys indicate that we are moving away from God’s truth and not towards it as a society.
Now faith within the visible church is also struggling. George Barna reports the following information about how many people follow a Christian world view in America. Here is what Barna says:
“Defining Terms
For the purposes of the survey, a “biblical worldview” was defined as believing that absolute moral truth exists; the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches; Satan is considered to be a real being or force, not merely symbolic; a person cannot earn their way into Heaven by trying to be good or do good works; Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; and God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today. In the research, anyone who held all of those beliefs was said to have a biblical worldview.
National Results
Overall, the current research revealed that only 9% of all American adults have a biblical worldview. Among the sixty subgroups of respondents that the survey explored was one defined by those who said they have made a personal to commitment to Jesus Christ that is important in their life today and that they are certain that they will go to Heaven after they die only because they confessed their sins and accepted Christ as their savior. Labeled “born again Christians,” the study discovered that they were twice as likely as the average adult to possess a biblical worldview. However, that meant that even among born again Christians, less than one out of every five (19%) had such an outlook on life.
The same questions were asked of respondents in national surveys by Barna in 1995, 2000 and 2005. The results indicate that the percentage of adults with a biblical worldview, as defined above, has remained unchanged for more than a decade. The numbers show that 7% had such a worldview in 1995, compared to 10% in 2000, 11% in 2005, and 9% now. Even among born again adults, the statistics have remained flat: 18% in 1995, 22% in 2000, 21% in 2005, and 19% today.”
On one hand we are not seeing a decline in those who hold a biblical world view over the last 10 years but the total number of Americans holding this world view is about nineteen million out of a population of roughly 217 million adults. We can be a significant influence. But we are only a minority and we are not growing.
We need to have reformation in the Church, which is a return to a biblical world view.
We need to have renewal in the Church, which is a return to a living and passionate spirituality.
We need to have revival in the society, which is an experience of God’s saving grace in the gospel of Messiah Jesus.
To do this we must check our own spiritual direction today. Are we moving in the direction of having more faith or are we moving in the direction of having less faith.
Are we neglecting spiritual disciplines such as fasting, prayer, biblical meditation, giving to the poor, study of scripture, witnessing, and praise?
How consistently do we seek the LORD?
What do we seek when we need to find encouragement for our souls? Is it something outside of the Christian faith? Is this an idol in our life?
Whatever becomes the ultimate concern of our lives has become our God.
What is the ultimate concern of my life at this moment?
Have you been back sliding? Is your faith less than it was a year ago? What has weakened your faith? How could this be overcome? What could you do to grow in faith again? What most nurtures your faith? Do you need to take a weekend with be with God and talk out your frustrations and fears with the LORD? Why is it hard to say no to temptation? How could your strength to overcome your temptations be increased?
Is your faith greater than it was a year ago? How could it become even greater? What spiritual challenge do you need to accept from God? What steps should you take to prevent back sliding? What can you do to build up your local church? How could you be a blessing to your congregation? How could your faith impact your friends, neighbors, family, and associates in a greater way? How do you plan to seek as the ultimate concern of your life the kingdom of God and HIS righteousness?
God is faithful. The LORD knows that we drift away. The Lord brings reformation, renewal, and revival. The Messiah Jesus will build HIS church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. If God is for us then who can be against us? With hopeful faith we must pray for reformation, renewal, and revival. Seize the day for Christ Jesus!
(The nearly daily devotional is a ministry of First Church West. More information about this fellowship can be found at firstchurchwest.net. If you do not regularly receive this e-mail devotional then you can be put on the list by e-mailing terry_wise@bellsouth.net and asking receive the devotional.)

How can we do church well?

As one studies church history is become clear that it is not easy to do church well. Paul says that the manifold wisdom of God will be seen by the powers of the heavens in the Church (Eph 3:10). It is clear that God's intention is for us to demonstrate His love, grace, and holiness. We are to be the body of Messiah and live the gospel before the nations. Yet, we are so easily distracted and deceived.

We normally can stand in judgment of other Christians and of various movements in church history. Yet, we rarely judge ourselves or our short comings. Self righteousness runs deep in our veins and it is hard to understand that some who prayed harder than we have prayed and studied harder than we have studied, failed to do church well. So how great is the danger that in our generation we might fail to do church well. Are we failing even now?

The beginning of insight is humility. My brothers and sisters for 2000 years have struggled to do church well. How easy is would be for me to fail to do church well. Satan, the world, and the flesh have as their highest priority to shatter the witness and testimony of the church. They are much more interested in corrupting the Church than running Washington. They want us not to reflect God's wisdom but to be foolish.

Lord, have pity on your people. We need revival of true spirituality and reformation to align ourselves with your WORD. We need a transformation of head and heart. We need to know how to relate to one another in holy love. Teach us to do church well.

What is the purpose and mission of the Church?

I was home last Sunday because I was ill. During my time of prayer, meditation, and study at home I was reading Dr. Robert E. Webber’s Ancient – Future Evangelism: Making Your Church A Faith-Forming Community . As I was reading, I came across a passage that in my opinion summarizes a great deal of our current struggle to get clarity on the purpose and mission of the Church. This is what I read:

“If the mission of God through Jesus Christ is to rescue creation from the presence and power of evil, then what is the mission of the church? If the church is the context for Christian formation, we must then have a biblical view of the purpose of the church. There seems to be some confusion about the purpose of the church in both the mainline and evangelical communities. Let me explain.

Back in 1979 a church leader sent a letter to evangelical leaders declaring, “God is calling us to march into the halls of Congress and clean up America for God.” His concerns were certainly appropriate: the rise of the permissive society, the breakdown of marriage, violence in the streets, pornography, abortion, and drugs to name a few issues that pointed to the breakdown of American society. Rev. Jerry Falwell’s answer was to found the Moral Majority and through this organization mobilize churches throughout America to vote Christians into office. These Christians were to act as responsible moral citizens in places of power. The idea was that through them a reforming and stable influence would be established to stem the eroding values of a godless American culture. The particular arm of the government through which evangelicals were to fulfill their calling to be salt and light to the world was the Republican Party.

In the meantime the mainline church was also mobilizing to assert an influence on another set of political problems. --- poverty, racism, the crumbling of the inner city, gangs, and the meaninglessness found among the jobless, single mothers, and aging dependents. For mainliners these matters of raising humanity to a more humane level were the goal of the church and the arm of the government through which this task was to be accomplished was the Democratic Party.

What’s wrong with this picture then and now? The church was being politicized. That is, this view says the agenda of the church is accomplished by teaming with a political power of the world. This view compromises the purpose of the church. It results in a distortion of the church’s mission to the world. Yet this view persists. Consequently we must ask: What is the purpose and mission of the church? ….

The mission of the church is to be about the politics of Jesus. Jesus is Lord. He has won a victory over the powers of evil and is now and shall be forever be the reigning Lord over everything God has created. The Church is called to live this truth, proclaim it, enact it, and call people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and to a life of obedient discipleship under His reign in their lives. “ (pgs 153 & 154)

I believe Dr. Webber has done a very good job in summarizing a significant part of what has been happening in the church over the last thirty years. I was part of that process in which there was an attempt to stand and war against the evil in society through the politics of the Republican Party. Christians struggled to move from an isolated cultural ghetto to become a dominant political voice. All of these movements were impacted by many factors such as views on prophecy, economic back grounds, cultural environments, and existing political beliefs. Christians sincerely want to respond to the problems of our society and influence it for good.

Yet, how do we do this without having the church simply absorbed into the secular purpose and plans of the existing political powers? How do we keep the church from just becoming a pawn in an elaborate game that is being played by other institutions, movements, and powers? How do we maintain the independence and integrity of the church as God’s embassy upon the earth? How do we avoid being taken over by the spirit of the age in which we live? How ought we to live in this post-Christian society?

As I thought about these issues, I remembered an old mentor of mine; Dr Francis Schaeffer. One of the first books I read by Dr. Schaeffer was Death in the City which is a group of meditations on Jeremiah and Lamentations. In that book Dr. Schaeffer said:

“The church in our generation needs reformation, revival, and constructive revolution. At times men think of the two words reformation and revival as standing in contrast one to the other, but this is a mistake. Both words are related to the word restore. Reformation refers to a restoration to pure doctrine; revival refers to a restoration in the Christian’s life. Reformation speaks of a return to the teachings of Scripture; revival speaks of a life brought into its proper relationship to the Holy Spirit. The great moments of church history have come when these two restorations have simultaneously come into action so that the church has returned to pure doctrine and the lives of the Christians in the church have known the power of the Holy Spirit. There cannot be true revival unless there has been reformation; and reformation is not complete without revival. Such a combination of reformation and revival would be revolutionary in our day -- revolutionary in our individual lives as Christians, revolutionary not only in reference to the liberal church but constructively revolutionary in the evangelical, orthodox church as well. May we be those who know the reality of both reformation and revival, so that this poor dark world may have an exhibition of a portion of the church returned to both pure doctrine and Spirit-filled life.” (Francis A. Schaeffer, Death In The City, Ch. 1)

This is actually a great summary of what I have prayed for and worked to see happen at First Church West over the last fourteen years. To goals is to have First Church West be a “portion of the church” which has returned to both pure doctrine and Spirit-filled life?” As a community of believers beginning a new year it would be good for us to refocus our attention upon revival and reformation.

So what do you think about these issues? What is the purpose and mission of the church from your perspective? How can we seek revival and reformation? May the Lord help us experience these realities and transform us more and more into what He desires us to become both as a local church and as individuals.