Turning from our “wicked ways” sounds like something that is meant for pagans in the Old Testament. Maybe even those non-believers at the time of Jesus. And certainly it refers to most in our permissive society today who totally disregard Jesus and do their own thing. However, I believe it applies to us, followers of Christ.
Obviously, the operative scripture is 2 Chronicles 7:14. Our “wicked ways” do not have to be murder, rape, sodomy, etc. to be included here. For those who call themselves “followers of Jesus”, the term “wicked ways”, I believe, includes anything that ignores Jesus, and, we have a multitude of opportunities there. I have consulted in dozens of churches over the years. If there is one thing that is common to many churches, it is this: churches, like individuals in our society, are attempting to live out their own agenda without regard to Jesus. I believe they are living out their “wicked ways”. How many people or churches do you know that really live out Luke 9:23?? Probably not many.
Certainly, churches pay little regard to the Lord because members of the church pay little attention to Jesus in their daily lives. As we individually ignore Jesus, the tendency is embraced by the corporate church. Since individuals fail to consult Jesus in the circumstances of their daily lives, so the church does likewise. Failure to consult Jesus is a result of our spiritual drifting over the past 100-200 years.
It seems to me that the most important on-going discussion in the life of a church is to answer this question: Where do we see Jesus working around us? The importance of that question surfaces in the amazing scripture of John 5:19. If Jesus can’t figure out what to do, who are we to make those decisions in our personal lives as well as in the activities of the church? Jesus said that He can do nothing of Himself, but instead, looks to see what the Father is doing, and He does likewise. So, to understand what God is doing around us is extremely important.
One of the principles that Blackaby interpolates from scripture is very appropriate here: When God shows you where He is working, that is an invitation for you to join Him in that work. So, the key to being obedient to the Lord is to constantly assess the activity you see around you and determine if God is up to something. I think that God intended for us to do that in our personal lives as well as in the life of our church.
The key to obedience, to my way of understanding, includes two things. First, we must be guided by the Bible. It tells us a lot, more than most of us can understand. In addition to what we find in the Bible, we must observe what God is doing around us. When we put those two things together, making sure one does not contradict the other, we can have a fairly clear picture of what God wants us to do. If we fail to follow the Lord as Jesus followed the leading of the Father, I believe we can slip into activity that can be described as some of our “wicked ways”, because it does not include the activity of God.
Here is the basic problem that we all must face: It is my understanding that if we don't follow Jesus and we decided to keep on with our "wicked ways" (which excludes Him), we are deceiving ourselves if we call ourselves "Christians". If our intent is to make it to heaven, we are in a very spiritually precarious position. If we want to remedy the situation, it must start with repentance.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Spiritual Drift
Do people drift in their relationship with the Lord? Absolutely! The Old Testament is filled with the occurrences of the Israelites in a “sin cycle” involving fellowship with God, drifting from God, disobedience through sin, repentance, and returning to fellowship with God. Drifting is not confined to the Old Testament. I believe it has happened in America over the past 100-200 years. As best as I can determine, we are in the “negative” part of the sin cycle in America.
We see indirect evidence of this everywhere. Baptisms are of down significantly from 20 years ago. Many churches are inward focused. Only 1% of our churches are growing because of conversion growth. Serious corporate and individual prayer is low. Cooperative program gifts, when you consider economic inflation, have been decreasing over the past 20 years. There is little evidence in our churches where activity is attributed to the sovereign supernatural intervention of God. Many church leaders have lost God’s vision and their passion for God’s work. There is significant conflict and/or ineffectiveness at many levels of SBC life. The list goes on.
How did we get where we are? Spiritual drift. Consider this. Just suppose when you were saved you joined a church that was 50% dysfunctional. The church did some things right and some things that God did not like, but, you had no church background, so, what you observed in church was considered “normal” activity. Twenty years later, the church is about 60% dysfunctional. You have seen some changes, but not enough to get too concerned about. Now at 60% level of church dysfunction, someone else is saved and to that person everything is “normal” because he has no previous experience in church life. Now, extend that kind of spiritual drift from 20 to 100 or 200 years. Might we have drifted so slowly away from God that our drifting away from God has been undetectable to us? Might we have drifted so far that we are out of fellowship with God and don’t know it? I think that is a distinct possibility.
What is the solution? In a word, REPENTANCE. Are there any scriptures we specifically need to follow in this situation? There are several, but two come to mind: Luke 9:23 (get off of our own agenda and get onto God’s agenda) and 2 Chronicles 7:14 (get humble, pray, turn from our wicked ways). You say we aren’t involved in wicked ways? Well I think we are, and this will be the topic of my next article.
We see indirect evidence of this everywhere. Baptisms are of down significantly from 20 years ago. Many churches are inward focused. Only 1% of our churches are growing because of conversion growth. Serious corporate and individual prayer is low. Cooperative program gifts, when you consider economic inflation, have been decreasing over the past 20 years. There is little evidence in our churches where activity is attributed to the sovereign supernatural intervention of God. Many church leaders have lost God’s vision and their passion for God’s work. There is significant conflict and/or ineffectiveness at many levels of SBC life. The list goes on.
How did we get where we are? Spiritual drift. Consider this. Just suppose when you were saved you joined a church that was 50% dysfunctional. The church did some things right and some things that God did not like, but, you had no church background, so, what you observed in church was considered “normal” activity. Twenty years later, the church is about 60% dysfunctional. You have seen some changes, but not enough to get too concerned about. Now at 60% level of church dysfunction, someone else is saved and to that person everything is “normal” because he has no previous experience in church life. Now, extend that kind of spiritual drift from 20 to 100 or 200 years. Might we have drifted so slowly away from God that our drifting away from God has been undetectable to us? Might we have drifted so far that we are out of fellowship with God and don’t know it? I think that is a distinct possibility.
What is the solution? In a word, REPENTANCE. Are there any scriptures we specifically need to follow in this situation? There are several, but two come to mind: Luke 9:23 (get off of our own agenda and get onto God’s agenda) and 2 Chronicles 7:14 (get humble, pray, turn from our wicked ways). You say we aren’t involved in wicked ways? Well I think we are, and this will be the topic of my next article.
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