The State of the Church

At the risk of sounding whiny . . .

When I turn on the television and I do not get a picture on the screen, I know that something is wrong. It may be that the television is not plugged in; it may be that I forgot to pay the cable bill; or it may be that my television set has tanked. Regardless, I know that when I do not get the expected results, something is wrong.

In John 14:12, Jesus says that we, His followers, will do greater works than He did while on earth. In John 10:10, Jesus says that He has come to give us an abundant life. In the Book of Acts, we see this lived out as just a small number of followers turned the Roman world on its ear in just a few decades.

So, if the expected result of following Jesus is that miraculous events will occur, we will have a fulfilling life, and the world will be forced to take notice, then I think it is safe to say that something must be wrong. Where are all of these things that Jesus said would be a part of each of our lives? Well, like the television set, either Christianity is broken (and the Bible wrong- which I do not think is the case) or we are doing it wrong. What we conceive of as the Christian life is not Biblical because we are not seeing the Biblical results.

Sadly, much of the church justifies this failure instead of dealing with it. We explain away the lack of the power of God in our lives with theological arguments instead of pursuing Him for more of His power. We write books on how to have a fulfilling life based on our efforts rather than finding the fulfilling life He has for us. We do all that we can to proclaim that we are spiritually rich instead of confessing that we are poor, blind, miserable & naked.

Maybe that's where we should start.