In case you hadn’t noticed, The Church, the Body of CHRIST, is under attack. No, this isn’t anything new or any recent development, because from its inception, CHRISTianity has been scrutinized by both the unlearned and the intellectual, the unbelieving and the seemingly sure…of themselves. Through it all; political agenda, social injustice, media misconception, etc., The Church has continued to stand. Even when breached and attacked from within (because we failed to realize that certain things we let in came with demonic company), The Bride has continued to press towards her wedding day, enamored with the thought of the never-ending honeymoon soon to come.
What has been lost in the midst of the onslaught, manifesting more strategically and blatantly with each pass, is our effectiveness. You see, you don’t just taint someone’s influence by making them look bad, whether it’s fabricating information or relating actual fact to the masses; I mean, that method works, but not just because it works. The thief, crafty as he is, can’t kill and destroy what he hasn’t first stolen; it’s not in his possession until then. So what’s he after? Our voice. Catch this: the Bible is clear on where words and actions come from: the overflow of our hearts. The same can be said for an entity that is supposed to be unified and connected such as The Church: we have a voice. It’s been calling men to repentance, warning of the impending times to come (and that are presently upon us), and sharing a message of love, redemption, and holiness for years. So what’s my point? Well, let’s look at a few:
Prayer out of schools…check. 10 Commandments removed from monmuments and state buildings…check. Marriage redefined…check. Compromised living in pursuit of popular approval…check. Non-Gospel Gospel music…check. Emasculating men, generically, and Men of GOD, specifically (thanks jezebel)…check. Bruce Jenner turns into…smh…well…
You see what we’re getting at? Things that could have been spoken against, weren’t…not loudly enough, not frequently enough. We’re asked, and even told in some instances, to just deal with it; not just the world in general, but The Church in particular. Porn on TV? Deal with it. Homosexuals in our children’s textbooks as the new “normal”? Deal with it. Someone decides to shoot up a church filled with innocent parishioners that we’ll cover as a RACE crime, but not as a FAITH crime? Deal with it. We, The Church, in turn have been content with keeping our prayer, praise, and preaching confined to a closet. We should be coming out. Don’t believe that the church has lost its voice? Take a look at YOUR church (or ones you’re familiar with). Popularity and perverted prosperity have converted the elect into elected officials and entertainers, while complacency converts lions into librarians, whispering about The Book as opposed to boldly proclaiming the TRUTH therein with word and deed(Matt.10:27). In the Spirit, we hear pins dropping rather than chains falling. And the neighborhoods I which we hold our services, receive our tax breaks, and park our “increase”, remain largely unchanged and unreconciled because we’ve allowed limits to be placed on our love for JESUS that we won’t extend beyond the four walls. If our hearts aren’t emboldened, neither will our words be. If our hearts can be lulled to sleep, then so can our mouths.
The world swears we, The Church, mock their lives, their feelings, their identities, that they were “born this way”, when we, The Church, are simply living something that predates us all. The world seems to forget, though, that we, those who are now a part of The Church, were once a part of the world. Does that make us fakes and phonies for now stating what applied to our lives even when we disagreed and lived rebelliously against? Nope. Just means we’ve seen this movie before…starred in this movie before, and we know how it ends. I think, though, that we, The Church, forget, more than we should, thatwe’ve come out of the world, too; that it’s no longer what we are, but what we were. We no longer need to be accepted of “them”, when we’re now accepted in the beloved (Eph.1:1-6). We no longer need to be validated by “them”, when we’re now affirmed in HIM (Rom.8:28-39). We no longer need to fear them when HE’s told us to fear not (pick any 1 of the 365 times HE does). Speak up. Speak out. Say what GOD is saying. There’s no more effective, efficient way to remove The Church from the global psyche as necessity than to keep it quiet, presenting the presumption that we do not care. We are The Church. We do have a voice. Use it.
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