This is the third draft of my note to you this month…the first two didn’t work! I had some things that I wanted to say here but God wants me to say something else so here it is.
For the past two days, a church has been the main story in the news. It amazes me at what passes for authentic Christianity in our society today. The garbage that gets spewed from some pulpits makes me feel sick at my stomach and I can only imagine how it must make Christ feel. But more than that, what does it make Him look like to a lost world? Yes, we know that there are devils dressed up like ministers of God in our world today just as there was when Jesus walked the earth two-thousand years ago. But what about all of those that cheer and praise and shout for joy when this rhetoric is preached? How do these people make Christ look? How can so many people be so blind to the truth? What has happened to the Gospel of our Lord?
There are too many questions to try to answer here so I will answer only two of them. The first, how does it make Christ look to the world? This answer is simple…it makes Him look bad. The church is His body. We are to bring Him glory. We should show this world that there is a better way. I understand that what we say and what we do does not change who He is but if we don’t let this world see Him, nobody is going to.
The second question, why do so many people cheer and shout and seek this kind of religion? The Bible says that the day will come when people will not want to hear the truth, they will want their ears tickled. We are in this day. You see, there is no conviction in hearing the faults of others. Conviction doesn’t come from a message that says, “You’re OK, it is someone else’s fault.” There’s no conviction in a gospel that is lowered to meet my standards instead of meeting God’s standard. There is no conviction when we leave Jesus out of the message or try to form Him into our own image. Without conviction, there is no repentance and without repentance there can be no salvation.
I have one more question for you to ponder today. This one only you can answer. How do you make Christ look to this world? I know how I want to make Him look. I want the world to see His love, His patience, His grace, and His joy in me. I also know that even when I am trying my very hardest to be as much like Him as I can be, I still don’t do His true character justice. With this in mind, I have to realize how it makes Him look and feel when I whine, complain, feel sorry for myself, or exalt and glorify myself instead of Him. So the question remains, how do you make Jesus look to this world?
May God bless you always,
Pastor Jason (PJ)