Computers intimidate me. I won’t deny it. I tried the same sequence twenty times before it dawned on me. It didn’t work the first time or the fifteenth time, it isn’t going to work on the twenty-first time. Insanity,! I thought to myself. Here I sit doing the same thing over and over again, hoping for a different result.
It seemed like the thing to do. It should have worked. In fact, it did work on my old computer. So why am I so dedicated to something that isn’t working?
The only reason I can find is that I don’t know what else to do; Or maybe because I always did it that way before. Or perhaps I’m just too plain stubborn to admit I could be wrong.
When do we finally admit that our church is no longer answering the call to be a light to the community. Is the percentage of broken families smaller in the church than in the surrounding community? Is the divorce rate lower? How about the drug/alcohol/pornography/adultery statistics?
We were put in a place to be a light on a hill. To be different we have to be, well…. different. And we aren’t. At least not on the grand scale we should be. We are supposed to be a counter-culture, the antithesis of the world, the opposite of all we propose to be damaging and damning and ungodly.
Instead we have become a sub-culture. Flowing in the same stream, floating along in the same direction as the rest of the world. We speak a different language, (Amen, praise God, hallelujah!) But we are deemed irrelevant by the world because they are looking for a way out of darkness, and we haven’t lived up to our claim that we know the way.
I sat in the office of a pastor recently. His church was being torn apart by divorce, teenagers were being lost to the drug culture. Adulterous affairs had been exposed, and his heart was broken. No one could question his dedication. He had served there for years. He had taught and shepherded and loved and prayed.
And now he was questioning whether he had ever made a difference.
History has repeated this question uncounted times throughout the years. When the answer came, it always came as a result of desperate prayer and the willingness to take a different direction. A willingness to allow God back in the drivers’ seat and to lay down the traditions of men that so easily infiltrate into any organized activity.
What God ordained and directed for a time, if held on to past it’s fruitful season becomes the tradition of men and will soon take the place of true relationship.
The source of Christian power, the power to save men from sin and out of sin, the power to heal broken bodies and to deliver men from the darkness that inhabits their minds comes from only one thing; Relationship with a living God.
He is waiting for you. Will you come to meet Him? Will you invite Him to meet you?
