(An Open Letter to the Church)
Dear Family,
As the crises generated by the decline of Western culture have become more and more severe, many church leaders have found themselves wondering: When will there be revival in our land?
This is a good question but I do not see that we have yet arrived at an appropriate answer. Certainly we have not yet enacted a capable solution. So when will we have revival in our land?
- When we stop wondering how we can have revival and start wondering how we can have more of God...
- When we realize that the growth of the church is the work of God's hands and not ours...
- When we stop trying to be clever preachers and start trying to clearly reflect the message of the Word...
- When we stop going to church to be entertained and start going to church to confront a holy God...
- When we start confronting people with the presence of a holy God who demands their obedience and wants an answer...
- When we stop confronting people with our own cleverness and start confronting people with a demonstration of the Spirit's power...
- When we stop treating God like a slot machine where we stick 25 seconds in the altar and out pops eternal life...
- When we stop thinking that heaven is what we buy at Wal-Mart and start longing for the real paradise...
- When we stop bringing people to church to hear a funny preacher and start bringing them to meet an awesome God...
- When we stop teaching adults a 6-year old's understanding of salvation and give them a real vision of all that redemption encompasses...
- When we stop teaching people how to sit in pews and start teaching them how to worship...
- When we realize ours is a lost world and damnation is more than just an eschatological pay-per-view for Christians to watch...
- When we stop worshipping ourselves and start turning our eyes to heaven...
...then there WILL be revival!
Amen, Lord, come quickly!
This page was written by Greg B. Rast and is part of the message of Hope Mountain Web Chapel (http://members.aol.com/webchapel/index.html). It may be circulated in any form as long as it appears in its entirity including this notice.
