A lot of my messages have a WAKE UP theme. I am finding I am more in need of a wake up call than anyone.
The Bible describes the state of the church today with a lot of verses. I can summarize it with one word, ASLEEP!!!! In Revelation God calls us “rich, blind, and naked, and in need of nothing.” Meaning we are not only blind to how fruitless we are, we are also satisfied in our fruitless condition as well. In the gospels Jesus uses the parable of the sower to describe one type as bearing no fruit because the crop was choked by weeds. This is the cares and affairs of this life that make a lot of us unfruitful. In 2nd Timothy, God describes the last day church as having a mere form of godliness, with men being covetous, proud, and lovers of pleasures vs. lovers of God.
There seems to be a sad division right now. Most Christians fit into either a “that’s not me” camp of denial, or a “woe is me” camp of hopelessness. I heard a Preacher contrast the days of the book of Acts with today’s Christianity. Back then he said the message was Jesus is coming back, “better get busy!” and now we say Jesus is coming back, “better not bother.”
The cults are growing. Sin in America is growing faster than you can say Jerry Springer. Most of us have thrown in the towel, and we got weary in the battle. We went out with our guns loaded, we ran straight into the front line and fired until we ran out of ammo, and not knowing what to do next, we got shot in the back, as we turned around in fear. Instead of simply reloading, we interpret that to say “Man, I was so foolish! I won’t ever do that again!” so we instead spend the rest of our Christian lives in training mode and we refuse to fight again.
And that is why the world is advancing.
We care about what is going on. We can see the world getting worse. We just are paralyzed by our fears, failures, and fruitlessness.
And we don’t know what to do.
I am no spiritual giant. I just get excited when I can write about what the problem is and when I write I seem to be able to see some answers. And if I log off and then go act on the answers maybe there might be some hope left.
In the meantime, I am waiting in the neutral zone of life. Waiting for the guests of my pity party to finally leave. Waiting for a thousand blog followers to beg me to come preach for their 12 week revival meeting. Waiting for a billionaire to rescue me from the mundane American Christianity so I can pay all my debts, get the green light to jump out into the ministry full force, and be able to let people see God really will provide for my dream. I have a dream, but the problem is I listen to everyone else tell me “no you don’t, go sit back down and don’t quit your day job!”
The problem is this living in no-man’s land is killing me, so perhaps you can relate. Maybe others are living there too. I came out of addictions and a life of sin when I got saved. I found an amazing freeing spiritual life where I went on mission trips and wrote tracts and preached on the streets and in the prisons. And I thought I was ready for full time ministry so I quit my job but soon fell flat on my face and have been scared to try again ever since. But the idea of trying to just maintain my Christianity and not advance my Christianity makes me feel like I am dying inside and burying my talents in a napkin.
It is my fault for not taking a bolder stand with my calling and for not trusting God during the trials I have gone through. But I also see the Church being double minded too. The Church (and I am not picking on my church, we all tend to do this.) says Jesus is the answer, yet in reality when the hard questions are asked, they send you to the wolves. I.E. the world. Jesus is the prince of peace and calms the storms, but if you have serious mental problems, they send you to a psychiatrist for medication. I am a pharmacist, and have been one before I was saved. In my heart, this job is not right. I am giving out “cures” that conflict with what I know about the Bible. Jesus is the answer, but I am expected to say by my actions, “Yes, but Jesus isn’t enough for you. Have some Prozac”.
I might be “whinier” than usual, but Jesus is the answer but they don’t like my questions. I am called to preach but I can’t do a thing about it because in all our minds, Jesus knows better than to call someone who can make $100,000 a year by his career. So what if he has to compromise everything he believes. So what if it kills him. So what if it doesn’t match what we believe.
And in the meantime, God is closing my pharmacy door. I lost my overnight position in October. I beat out 38 applicants for a new pharmacy opening in February also in October. And now it is May and we are still not open. I am not a math guy, but I think I would have made more being a Preacher! Let’s imagine a job you are paid thousands of dollars an hour, but if you can’t get paid for even 1 hour, your net pay is $0.
If God wants me working pharmacy fine. But I am ready to sell out completely to Jesus and jump out if I can get the green light.
Right now the “green” from a pharmacy career gives my calling the “red” light.
I want to thank all of you for reading this post. Especially you the billionaire.