A friend of mine recently wrote on Christianity and how so many Christians need a wake up call. He put it so well when he said: “I hate Christians so much some times. I want to just slap them in the face and scream… WAKE UP! you, with your phony actions, wake up, you with your snobbish denial, wake up! you, who lie, who cheat your way through your bible classes, wake up! You who would be ashamed to tell others what you did with your girlfriend last night, who can’t stop copping feels on girls who just pass you by, wake up! You, with your addictions, with your excuses, with your lies, with your false beliefs, you who buy into what they tell you and without even looking into it for yourselves, consider it truth, wake up! You, who will donate to churches where it is noticed, and will ignore the homeless on a stroll through the city, where no one would see you help them, wake up! You who live just to please others, because it’s what you’ve done all your life, wake up! Notice that there are REAL PEOPLE around. They see through your lifestyle, and could care less about your God, all because of who you have portrayed Him to be. Then, I stop and realize, I am exactly the same. And I am guilty of most, if not all of these things.” And he is right. What people are looking for is reality. Authenticity that can’t be postured or faked. We can no longer continue to do things the same way we have been doing them. We can no longer continue to live in the apathy that is part of the American church.
I speak as an American Christian and say that as we are so lazy, overfed and so quick to complain, and even quicker to condemn. There are people right now in other countries who are in hiding for what they believe. They will be killed if they reveal that they are Christians. But they move from house to house, village to village, quietly spreading God’s word. The people there do not have to be coerced, entertained or programmed into reading God’s word. They just eat it up. They memorize it book by book because they are so hungry for it. They don’t have to hear sermons on “How to get your congregation interested in reading the Bible in 4 easy steps.” They dont have to be prompted and urged to pray daily, because they are on their knees and faces before God. These people are passionate about Jesus Christ. See, somewhere along the way, we have lost that. Somewhere we forgot that the Bible is alive. It is exciting. So today, it is a struggle for many of us to even sit down for 15 minutes and read the living word of God – written by Him to us. Why? Why can we sit through a three hour Harry Potter movie without so much as a second thought, but if we are asked to sit down for a morning of prayer, we can’t handle it. I have been to the day of prayer at Grace. It is sad. People can’t even sit there and speak to God or let him speak to them without falling asleep. [And I don’t say this in judgment or condemnation � it is easy to sit back and go on about life in the bubble and how things at Grace are so bad � I have read all the comments. So I say to you who complain… Do something about it. You are the future. Stop sitting there whining and start by praying and becoming men and women of passion and purpose. One person with a passion for Jesus Christ could rock the campus of Grace College. Imagine what two or three could do.]
We are in the desert. We are in a time of barreness. There is a dramatic lack of understanding. There is a famine of a desire for the Word of the Lord. There is a lack of revelation. We are fragmented as a church. We fight among ourselves over nonsense. How long will this continue? When will we wake up and take a look at our spoiled selves and become men and women of passion? Men and women who do not need to be entertained by the pitiful trash this world attempts to offer us, but warriors and intercessors who are entertained by being in the presence of the holy and living God. When will we wake from this sleep and realize that “church” and “christianity” is not about us at all, but all about HIM? He who loves us more than his own life. He who took Himself out of His comfort zone and become one of us. He to whom we owe everything.
There is a powerful move of God coming. There are young men and women rising up in passion and prayer with a purpose to know him in a real way. They are the future leaders of this country. They are making decisions to throw off the things of this world and pursue Jesus Christ with a such a fire and passion that escapes so many who are bogged down in traditionalism and insistent in keeping God in that nice little box that they like Him to be in. We are living in a time where things are dry. But I believe God is going to start moving in a huge way in this area. I am praying He does. I am praying He rocks our world. I am praying he slaps us around and wakes us up from the apathy and the excuses and the lies that are keeping us shackled to the prison of this world.
Wake up Christians! Don’t go back to your comfort zones! Don’t go back to your compromise! Wake up because you are about to get blown away by what God is going to do.