I've been listening to the Hillsong album "This is Our God" lately and to be honest I've overplayed most of the tracks but the song "Where We Belong" has grabbed my attention. It had always been one of those tracks that I just skipped over but for the past two weeks I've had it on repeat and I've been really meditating on the lyrics because they're really awesome.
The chorus ends with the line "our hearts are filled Your fire" and this is something that I just want to ponder. I'm feeling really disheartened and really disappoined lately at the state of the church and at the state of "christians". We're so good at making sermons sound inviting and making music that's nice to sing along to and to listen to in our cars but what are we actually doing that's impacting the world. If you've read any of my other posts, you'll know I posted a few quotes from the start of Pete Grieg's book "Awakening Cry" in which he talks about how the church has retreated into its own little world and is now basically seen as being insignificant by the rest of the population. It's so true.
In churches all over the world we're teaching about spiritual revival and renewal and we're writing songs about God pouring His glory once again upon our land and bringing people to Him. I'm really doubting the motivations for this move. Is it for our church attendance to increase? Because surely if out heart's cry really was for revival and for an outpouring of God's spirit then we'd be doing so much more. We wouldn't be sitting in church hearing about how God is going to pour out His Spirit once more. We wouldn't be waiting for it to happen. What people don't get is that revival isn't something we're waiting for. It's something we need to DO. We need to break ourselves down to rock bottom so that we're relying on God and on God alone. To a point where we don't need anything but HIM. When we get there we need to spend time building upon our intimacy with Him so that we can not only hear His heartbeat but that it can be installed within out own being. That we can actually lay down our lives and our desires for His plan and to do His work.
It's something that we talk about all the time. Following Jesus. Laying down our life. Picking up our cross and following Him. I see very few people actually doing it (and this post isn't getting at anyone, it's a challenge to myself more than anything else). Laying down our lives is something that we're called to do and if we're not doing it we're not living the life that God has called us to. Christianity was never supposed to be easy. The message is simple but the calling is huge. To bring the good news of salvation to the ends of the earth. But when was the last time we talked to one of our unsaved family members about the love of Christ? When was the last time we even did something nice for somebody else?
We're not going to see even the slightest move of revival until we get ourselves on the right track. As Pete Grieg also says, revival isn't about an elevation but it's about a restoration of relationship between us and God. When we read about the early church in Acts we don't see something that's mediocre... I see something that's so on the edge and so dynamic and world-changing. Look how far those few men brought the Gospel in their lifetime. When I look at that my heart just cries, "WHAT ARE WE DOING?". We're singing these songs about how we'll go where God sends us, about how we're sold out for His plans and His purpose, about how our hearts are filled with His fire... but if all that was really true would we not be doing so much more? Do we really believe that God has called us to bring the Gospel to people across the earth? If we do then why are we so passive and letting people in our lives come and go daily without telling them?
I just don't understand why we're immobilised and all I can do is pray that God would waken people out of their sleep and that He would install mobility once again. It's time to stop sitting and waiting for something to happen. It's time to get out and BE the revival that we want to see. We need to get down on our knees and weep for the lost. We need to be doing all we can to bring the God's Kingdom to earth. It's only when we're doing all that we can through God's power that we'll see change. People are God's instruments and when we're waiting for Him to move.... we have to let Him move through us.
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