A Dead Church - Cecil A. Thompson

Below I have reposted today's devotional from "Blessings from the Heart". It spoke to me, especially going into this new year.

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DAILY-E-VOTIONAL
BLESSINGS FROM THE HEART
Pastor Cecil A. Thompson
December 31, 2008

“A DEAD CHURCH!”
Revelation 3:1-3

"To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of Him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you."

In this passage God is speaking. He is speaking not merely to a first-century church, but also to the churches of our day. Keep in mind that the “church” is not the structure made with wood, brick, stone, or other building materials. A church is composed of the people of God who come together as a body, for worship, fellowship, service and edification.

I want to walk very carefully here, as I express the words that God is laying on my heart at this very moment. We often think of a dead church as being stuffy, stilted, formal, and boring. That is all too often the case, but it goes much deeper than that. A dead church may also be filled with noise, activity, and even spiritual sounding terminology. It is even possible for people to seek emotional feelings in place of tenderly seeking God and God alone.

So what determines if a church is alive or dead? Let's focus in a little closer. What determines if “you” are spiritually alive or dead? One of our typical responses is to focus on, "them." “They are dead! He or she is dead!” I, on the other hand, am practically perfect in every way!" Such an idea, filled with self-sufficient pride, should be a dead giveaway of our spiritual morbidity (death).

We are spiritually dead, or near death, when we no longer have a spiritual appetite. If there is not a hunger in our hearts for God's pure Word—we must check our pulse immediately! Unfortunately there are church members, or should I say, church attendees, who are more interested in the hymn selections, how long the service lasts, color of the carpet, etc., than they are about meeting with God. They fail to cherish a time to shut out the world and listen to His Word read and proclaimed, lift their hearts in prayer, and join with others of His family weekly, for a spiritual family reunion.

We individually are in need of spiritual “911” care if we do not have it daily—YES! I SAID DAILY—times of intimate prayer with God. Not just praying a shopping list of our requests, but sharing our deep feelings of praise and petition. A sign of spiritual life is being silent before Him in order to hear His soft, still voice speaking words of comfort and purpose to us. We need to take the time to lovingly read His Word and then spend time meditating about the words and visualizing what is being said. It is life giving to use scripture as a part of our prayer.

I hope you are beginning to see that death in our midst is not easily covered up with the stench of human programs, practice or pretense. God sees the real us and desires more than "Let's pretend." It is time for a complete spiritual examination. As the Lord dictated this letter to the church in Sardis, and said they were dead, what would He say about us? Do we need to be resuscitated? If so, He stands ready to raise us from our dead condition, and breathe His new life into us.

Blessings dear hearts. Draw near to God today, trust Him completely and be a blessing!

- - - Pastor Cecil

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Am I prepared?

I'm reading a fiction series of books right now set in Germany. The first book is set between 1937 - 1944, during WWII. As I read about these fictional characters, including Christians who risked their lives and those of their families to save Jewish families, God's chosen, I can't help but imagine what it must have been like for those running/hiding for their lives and those assisting them during that time. While these characters are fictional, I realize they represent real people and real events. Families that were torn apart and killed just because of their heritage. People and families who risked their lives to stand against the evil of that day to try to help those who were being hunted down like they were nothing more than animals.

I ask myself the question - what if it was me and my family? How would I feel? How would I react? Would my faith crumble or grow stronger? Would I choose to follow Jesus, obey Him and possibly give up my life in this world doing so? Which life would be most precious to me, which life would be the bigger reality for me? This physical life or my eternal life? When it came down to it, when push came to shove, would I say yes and follow my Lord or would I turn my back and deny Him?

As I ponder these things I realize there could be a possibility of myself or my children having to one day make decisions such as this. Am I preparing my heart, nurturing my relationship with the Father in such as way that if and when that time comes my reality, hope and desire will be eternal regardless of the cost in this brief physical life? What am I doing to prepare my children? I realize the first step is to nurture my relationship with the Lord. No matter what I try to teach these precious little ones that that Lord has given me, nothing will speak louder than my own life and how I've chosen to live it.

Dear Lord,
I fear that when I look into my heart what I see is not the faith and character that would be required of me in similar circumstances. I realize the only way to ever obtain this though is to walk with you, to be your true disciple. Shine your light on those dark places in my heart that would not conform right now to You and Your Ways. Fan the flame in my heart so that it consumes me. Where my motives are not pure, please transform me. I want to be a true disciple of You, but know that I can't do this in my own power. Please nurture within me the heart and spirit that you desire for me to have.
~Amen

Mary Did You Know?

This is one of my favorite Christmas Songs. Enjoy!

From the Mouth of Babes

For those of you who do not visit my Ang4him My Life site - I thought this was worth sharing here as well.

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Jesus told us we needed to be as little children to know Him. I find it amazing how my children understand things so much better than I do at times. Today we were in the car and I was angry at someone for how they had been acting towards me. I know I need to let things go, but today I wanted to hang onto that anger. I wanted to wallow in it for a bit.

My four year old son asked me if we could sing. I told him Mommy did not feel like singing but he could if he wanted to. He started singing in his sweet voice a song I recently taught the kids that goes like this:

Be careful little eyes what you see,
Be careful little eyes what you see,
Cause the Father up above
Is looking down with love,
So be careful little eyes what you see.

He then started the following conversation:

A: Mommy, who is the Father up above?
Me: That is God.
A: Good Job Mommy! You are right. And who is his Holy Son?
Me: That would be Jesus.
A: You are right Mommy!! God our Father sent Jesus because He loves us! And they are always watching over us.

Then he began to sing again, and this is when I realized God was using my 4 year old to remind me of how much He loves me and has forgiven me and that He wants me to do the same -

Be careful little heart what you feel,
Be careful little heart what you feel
Cause the Father up above
Is looking down with love,
So be careful little heart what you feel.

The funny part is that I never taught him the heart verse,, he came up with that himself. We had sang verses about eyes, ears, mouths and even our mind - but never about our heart. That is what I needed right then though. I needed a reminder that what I let my heart dwell on, affects me spiritually. I need to stop wallowing in my anger and bitterness and start to let my heart feel God's love and forgiveness.

From the mouth of babes!

Progress

I'm on a C.S. Lewis kick now. I went to the library here in town yesterday and picked up a copy of The Complete C.S. Lewis which includes seven of his classic works. I've read the Narnia books before and have heard alot about some of his non-ficition works, but have not read any of them myself before. A part of me figured the writing style would be old school and I would find it dry or hard to understand.

Last night I started reading Mere Christianity. I must say, I wish I had picked this up sooner. This is wonderful. It is divided into four "books", of which I read the first last night. In it he talks about how we can know that there is something greater than us out there, that there is absolute morality, right and wrong.

Below is a quote I found interesting.

We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. . . There is nothing progressive about being pig headed and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world, it is pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistakes. We are on the wrong road. And if that is so, we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on.

For some reason I tend to think at times that the world has just started going downhill recently. However, C.S. Lewis wrote this in 1952. And as he mentions in this "book" there have been those who have been determined to deny God's existence every since the beginning. We may be getting a bit more creative about it and pushing it a bit more, but there really is nothing new under the sun. Until we are willing to admit there is absolute truth and morality and are willing to deal with those consequences; admit there is a real God who is all-powerful and all-knowing; then we are on the wrong road in need of a U-Turn.

Volition - Must See Short Film

I've not been posting lately due to quarter end at work and other stuff going on at home, but now I'm back. And for my first welcome back post I wanted to share this short film with you. It is about 15 minutes long and definitely worth watching. Please note, the film starts immediately so make sure to watch the whole thing.

The Doorpost Film Project - Volition

The was filmed over 3 days with a small budget to be entered in the Doorpost short film contest, but most importantly to make a point.

Here is the synopsis for the movie:

"Volition (n)- The act of making a choice. Sometimes the choice of inaction has consequences stronger than we could ever imagine. Throughout history, men have been faced with difficult choices in a world that makes it easy for them to conform. This film explores the hope that lies behind every decision made in the face of adversity; the hope that is buried in the heart of those that look beyond themselves and see something bigger worth fighting for."

If you are interested in more information check out the post Randy Alcorn did on his blog regarding this here.