Monday, July 18, 2005

What is hurting God's people? - My responses

Jason asked the following question:
What is hurting God’s people right now?
Well, here are a couple of things that I've been thinking about lately to answer his question:
  1. We rob God in our offerings - Malachi 3:8-10 - time, money, service, love, devotion - consequently, we don't fully experience the depth of His blessings (or we don't recognize them) and we, therefore, neglect to serve Him more.
  2. Apathy - "someone will get it done" and that thought is only by those that even care if something ever gets done. Not caring is one of the most detrimental attitudes in the church today. This is probably - aside from persistent, intentional wickedness - the most antithetical (to the very essence of living "like Christ")attitude that a christian could exhibit.
  3. Lack of faith/grounding - so many christians are "hereditary" and, therefore, not well grounded because they've never questioned/studied biblical questions for themselves. If there is no true, personal faith then there is no conviction and no action. So, we have meeting halls full of spiritual babes who believe they're much more mature than they actually are.
  4. Lack of repentance/understanding sin - i think we've preached (and heard from the denominational world) too much about God's love, and neglected his holiness/purity. Sin is disgusting. Sin separates me from God. I have to remove sin as far from myself as possible, not see how close I can get without falling in (and then of course jumping right over that edge!).
  5. Lack of trust for brethren - we don't have the close relationships that we should have with each other. This leads to all sorts of problems. A major problem is that we can't/won't ask for help. If we can't ask someone to help mow our lawn when we're sick, or fix something that we don't know how, how can we confess our sins to each other and expect real support?

That's just my take on the question. What do you think? Feel free to comment on my thoughts or on the original question yourself.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous7:27 PM

    ...a lack of humility. We have everything in life figured out. Whether it be in the church, in our homes, at our work, with our families, in our marriages or whatever, we generally think we know all of the answers.

    Because of this, the Spirit given to us when we accepted Christ, never has a chance to work because we are deciding our future, rather than letting him lead us through it.

    I am the king of this problem.

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