And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little chirldren, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
— Matthew 18:3
We need sweeping reformation. Let me give a definition of reformation as it is given in a religious dictionary: "Change by removal of faults or abuses, and a restoration to a former good estate." Now that is not so bad. I do not know how anybody who believes he or she is a Christian could ever object to changing in the direction of the removal of faults and abuses toward the restoration to a former good estate. The problem is change, which disturbs many people. They have accepted the status quo as being the very tablets given by God on the mountain. Most people, if they happen to be in any church anywhere, accept the status quo without knowing or caring to inquire how it came to be. In other words, they do not ask, "Oh God, is this of You, is this divine, is this out of the Bible?"
Because it was done and is being done, and because a lot of people are doing it, they assume it is all right. Then songs are written about it, and it gets into magazines. Pretty soon people are called to it, and the first thing we know we have gotten into a religious situation that is not of God. It is not according to Scripture, and God is not pleased with it at all. Rather, He is angry. Yet we do not know it because we do not like the word change. The change took place slowly, before we arrived on the scene, and we think because it is everywhere it is therefore right. We accept the status quo, the existing state of affairs, and say, "This is it," forgetting that history demonstrates that religions invariably degenerate.
thought
Change by reversion to the past seems safe except that a return to external forms does not insure recapture of the inner reality. Nor does the invention of new forms assure heart change.
prayer
Fascination with the new contemporary; nostalgia for the forms of the past; neither guarantee encounter with You. It is You I need, O God, You!
"Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool."
— Isaiah 1:18
The second question is: How many are worthy to hear His voice? In Acts 13:46b Paul and Barnabas told the people, "Since you reject it . . . we now turn to the Gentiles." This is a terrible judgment. But here is the gist of what I want to say: A radical and sweeping reformation is imperative among the people called Christians? Protestants generally and evangelicals in particular. What is meant by reformation? Some may recoil from that word; I have heard people say, "I do not believe in reformation ?I believe in regeneration." That sounds good and it gets some amens, but the fact is, if you do not have reformation you cannot have regeneration.
The Holy Spirit will not come and regenerate carnal, stubborn people who will not obey Him. First there must be a reformation. "Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. 'Come now, let us reason together,' says the LORD. 'Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool'" (Isaiah 1:16-18).
thought
A heart committed to obey more quickly and clearly perceives God's voice. Sometimes we only want to hear what we want to hear.
prayer
Father, sometimes the cost of obeying You seems so great, so painful. But what infinite cost is not obeying You.
The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, "Samuel! Samuel!" Then Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant is listening."
— 1 Samuel 3:10
. . . There are two questions before us. The first question is: How many of us are willing to hear the voice of God? Jesus said, "Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate" (Matthew 23:34, 37-38). Were these people willing to hear the voice of God?
Thousands of years before Christ was born in Bethlehem, the Holy Spirit said, "Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out, in the gateways of the city she makes her speech: 'How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge? If you had responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to you. But since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you'" (Proverbs 1:20-26).
thought
We all delight in hearing God's voice in words of forgiveness and comfort. But are we willing to hear His voice in unvarnished truth and naked honesty? "Speak, for your servant is listening" or are we?
prayer
Lord, there seem to be a thousand voices calling to me in this world. Help me to discern Your voice above them all and obediently listen!
Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time?
— Matthew 24:45
God's Word says that a faithful and wise steward gives the people their meat in due season. Some people preach the Bible all right, and you cannot deny that. But they go to the Bible as you would to a medical book to find out what you should prescribe. But instead of prescribing to suit each patient, they just prescribe for everybody at one time. When a preacher is not preaching to a given situation, it is like giving medicine to people indiscriminately. That approach is not particularly fitted for teaching the Word of God. Even though it may be faithful and true, without any regard to the current situation, it is like teaching the multiplication table. The New Testament epistles were written to specific conditions, as were the seven letters of Revelation.
Particular situations developed, and then the man of God wrote to these particular people. The seven letters found in Revelation were to particular churches, having regard to the needs of those churches. It was the same with the prophets of the Old Testament. No prophet went into an ivory tower, settled down to relax, read deeply awhile, took out a pen and said, "Now, I'm going to write a book of prophecy." They did not do it that way. They wrote to the need, to the situation. They aimed their arrows at a target. When God is speaking to a particular situation the power of the Holy Spirit is present and active. When David sinned, Nathan the prophet came to him and told a little parable. When David gave his judgment of what to do with the sinful man, Nathan pointed his finger at the king and said, "You are the man" (2 Samuel 12:7a). Immediately David threw off his crown and his robe, dropped his sceptre, fell on his knees and repented before God. That was a particular situation. When we are talking to a specific situation the sheep are separated from the gthought
Are we praying for our pastor/shepherd that he will clearly discern God's will as to what food to feed us from the Word of God? He himself needs to eat and digest it and then prepare it for us in palatable form, exegetically sound. It won't all be our fa
prayer
Lord, what a heavy responsibility to feed Your people?solid food for the mature as well as milk for the new believers. Father, enable those who feed us!oats, the veil is removed and the judgment begins.
I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
— Philippians 4:13
Failing to get ready in time for eternity, and failing to get ready now for the great then that lies out yonder, is a trap in plain sight. There is an odd saying in the Old Testament, "How useless to spread a net in full view of all the birds" (Proverbs 1:17). When the man of God wrote that, he gave the birds a little credit. It would be silly for a bird watching me set the trap to conveniently fly down and get into it. Yet there are people doing that all the time.
People who have to live for eternity fall into that trap set for them in plain sight. It is folly to put off to a tomorrow because you may never see the things that you should do now. It is an act of inexcusable folly to count on help that will never come. It is foolish to ignore God's help now offered us. Many are guilty of ignoring the help that is presently being extended to them, all the while waiting for help that will never come from others. There is not much that can be said in favor of lazy or careless Christians. God never told anyone to do anything that he or she could not do. Jesus said to the man with the paralyzed arm that hung at his side like a limp piece of flesh, "Stretch out your hand" (Matthew 12:13a). And the man, believing that Jesus was the Christ, stretched out his hand and was healed instantly. God has never asked anyone yet to do anything that He was not enabling the person to do.
thought
If He gives us strength we can do it. But what if He gives us strength and we don't use it? God's enablement unexercised?the story of many believers.
prayer
O Lord, teach me the sufficiency of Your grace and strength as I live this day. In Christ's name.
Tozer (cmalliance.org)
You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled.
— 1 Thessalonians 5:5-6
. . . the Lord may soon return. I realize there is a lot that we do not know about prophecy, but most Christians are looking for the second coming of the Lord. They expect Him to come. They do not know when He will come, and the ones who claim they do, do not. Nevertheless, He may come in your lifetime. He said that He would come back in an hour when we think not. It could be that this present decline in expectation may have an ominous significance. It can easily be said that this would be the time when fewer people are expecting the Lord. Thirty years ago everybody was expecting the Lord and talking about it. Now few are thinking and less are talking about it. If you press people, they will admit that they believe in the second coming of Christ, but they are not looking for it expectantly.
The last thing that bears upon the imperativeness of doing something about our spiritual life now is that we have such a short time to prepare for such a long time. By that I mean we have now to prepare for then. We have an hour to prepare for eternity. To fail to prepare is an act of moral folly. For anyone to have a day given to prepare, it is an act of inexcusable folly to let anything hinder that preparation. If we find ourselves in a spiritual rut, nothing in the world should hinder us. Nothing in this world is worth it. If we believe in eternity, if we believe in God, if we believe in the eternal existence of the soul, then there is nothing important enough to cause us to commit such an act of moral folly.
thought
What would you do today if you knew for certain that the Lord was coming two weeks from today? Then do it today!
prayer
O God, You have given me today?opportunity to invest today with tomorrow in view. Thank You.
Be very careful, then, how you live?not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.
— Ephesians 5:15-16
It is imperative not only that we Christians get out of our rut but that we get out now. You know if you are in. If you are not getting any prayers answered, or if your prayers are so vague you are not sure but what any answer might have been an accident, you are in the rut. If you are living far from God, yet hoping you are saved, you are in the rut. If you are not progressing, if you are where you were months or years ago, if you have settled down and learned to live with yourself and adjusted to your present spiritual state, you are in the rut. There are some reasons why it is imperative that we as a church and as individuals get out, and get moving on our way to a better spiritual life.
One is that you have not much time to do anything about it. Your own interest is going to flag before long. Change is absolutely imperative to getting out of the rut, but the older we get the less we feel the need to change. If people have an urge within their spirits based upon a belief and conviction that they ought to move?to begin to reassess their lives and adjust their living?then they ought to do it right now while they are thinking about it.
thought
Opportunities are God-given. They are present tense, to be utilized at once, otherwise they are lost.
prayer
Father, thank You for Your patience with me. And thank You for the opportunity to change.
. . . Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment.
— John 16:7-8
To apply pressure, a person projects himself or herself into the minds and consciences of people made in the image of God and forces them psychologically to do something they have no particular reason for wanting to do. They are not basically interested in it and have no satisfactory reason for doing it, but they are under pressure. If they do not have a reason for doing what they are going to do, they will not know why they are involved. Then when they get out they will not be sure that they were in, and so the whole process makes for weak, spineless religion. This violates the law of human nature, which dictates that all valid acts must arise from a natural urge or from a convinced mind. An example of a natural urge is when you are hungry.
You may be very hungry, but your hunger does not have a high intellectual content in it. Nobody needs to stand up and say, "Now, all you who are hungry raise your hands." You know you are hungry, and you just go out to eat. Hunger is a natural urge. Another legitimate reason for an act is a convinced mind. I am convinced that I ought to do something, and I do it because I have a conviction that it ought to be done. Those are the only two reasons for doing anything. If I force people under psychological pressure and steamroll them into doing something because they are too weak to resist, I have violated their nature. Our approach to getting people out of the rut, then, must not be to pressure them to do
thought
Can we trust the Holy Spirit to convict of sin, to reveal Christ, to open the minds of people to understand spiritual truth? If He doesn't do it, it doesn't get done despite all our efforts.
prayer
Lord, my greatest offensive weapon is prayer?believing, trustful prayer. I want to be Your instrument but keep me from trying to do what only You can do.omething they don't want to do. Instead, we must present the truth and let the Holy Spirit prompt them to want to escape.
Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity . . .
— Hebrews 6:1
Israel allowed themselves to settle down and became contented with circumstances that were all right, but which could and did break their spirit of adventure and cause them to accept the status quo as being final for them. Every once in a while through prophet, apostle or psalmist, God stretches out His hand and tries to arouse His people from their sleep. Somebody once said that man is made of dust and dust tends to settle. People tend to settle down and do the same things year in and year out, slowly going around in a circle. When this gets into religion, it is deadly and evil. The majority of Christians are asleep and in a spiritual rut.
Sometimes Christians who realize they are in a rut put pressure on others to adopt their viewpoint. But even if truth does not convince and persuade a man or woman, nobody has the right to set up a psychological squeeze on someone else. If people yield under pressure, it shows that they are too weak to resist. If they are too weak to resist, and if they take a religious position because they are too weak to resist, they will also be too weak to persist. When we follow Christ there must be persistence. We must go on.
thought
Let's go on! There is more to experience in Christ. There are promises to be fulfilled. There are opportunities to be seized. Let's keep walking by the Spirit. Let's persist in going on!
prayer
Father, I want to go on. I want to grow, to mature as Your child. I know that is Your will for me. Change me by Your Spirit! In Jesus' name.