True Discernment

There is a hollowness to most Churches today. Many people can’t quite put their finger on what is causing it. I believe many earnestly want a move of the Holy Spirit in their Churches. They desperately want to see people healed to see people’s lives to be changed but for “some reason” the Holy Spirit does not move.

Why is that?

I believe it is because the Church as a whole has went too far down the road of accepting the “norms” of our modern society and has become blind to the damage those “norms” have done to the Church, even while the church goes on adopting more and more of those “norms” to attempt to grow their membership, or to be relevant to the non-Christians within our society.

The Subtleness of the corrosive affects of those norms make them appear to not be sinful on the surface. But that is because for the most part Churches have lost all ability to practice true discernment and recognize potential dangers.

It is like a mathematical equation. There is a direct and opposite relationship between the amount of acceptance of societal norms allowed within a Church and the decrease of Spiritual Power within that Church. The more norms of society accepted within the church, the less Spiritual Power is present and the more hollow and hungry people feel.

And I believe the a major societal norm that has had one of the greatest detrimental impacts upon the Church today is the loss of the local “Community”.

Now I am not talking just about small towns, and living in a small town. But I am talking about the good old fashioned principles and consistancy of beliefs that used to unite a local community. The New Testament and Acts church was built around the idea of the local body or local community as we have known them in our past national history, the kind that disappeared with the advent of the “Consumer Society”.  Yes there were a few bad aspects about a local community, but there was an overwhelming positive side to the idea of a thriving united local community that helped each other out. And our churches are supposed to function on that basis.

Today people go to Church on Sunday mornings, and if they are lucky their church will have a Sunday evening or possibly maybe a Wednesday evening service,  to “be fed” with “POP” culture corporate America influenced “junk food” to fill up their tank so they can go back home and hopefully make it through until the next service.. Its like a person filling up on sugar, the sugar gives them alot of antsy energy for a short space of time, but once the sugar is burned off, they feel empier than ever. 

In addition once they leave church they may never see or talk to another soul from their church until the next service or the next function the Church puts on for its members.

And even if they do talk to or see other people from their church, the relationship that exists is not in keeping with how God intended the local body to function: “That We Be One”.

Today’s Western Christian has adopted the consumer ethos of modern western society which is: I  have my house, I have my money and I do what I want when I want. And I will socialize with other Christians but don’t dare ask me to be responsible for any other Christian or don’t dare ask me to be accountable to any other Christian. After all this is America and it is enshrined in the Constitution that “all men are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights” 

But where does it say that in the Bible? Aren’t we as Christians supposed to cultivate and encourage those aspects that build up a local community of believers who can know that they can rely and depend on each other in times of need no matter what? 

The problem today is that far too many of us think that by being able to give money to someone in need and then walk away, that will solve their problem. It’s the modern American resolution to all things: “just throw more money at the problem”

But that resolves nothing, people today are desperately hungry and becoming hungrier still each passing day, while our society and not far after our Churches continue to adopt corrosive ideas and lifestyles that just keep making people hungrier!

When will the church wake up and see that they have walked away from the principles and lifestyles that enable it to drink of the water that makes them thirst no more!

“Jesus answered and said to her, whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.  The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.” 

John 4:13-15

 It is sad to say but the Western Church as we know it today is in its death throws. And what is even sadder is it doesn’t even recognize that fact.

The buildings will still remain, but they will be like white washed sepulchers with only the dead remaining inside. They will crumble just like the rest of western society is crumbling.

But yet still: 

 “And there he went into a cave, and spent the night in that place; and behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and He said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

So he said, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left; and they seek to take my life.” 

Then He said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.

So it was, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. Suddenly a voice came to him, and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

And he said, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God of hosts; because the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left; and they seek to take my life.”

 Then the LORD said to him: “Go, return on your way to the Wilderness of Damascus; and when you arrive, anoint Hazael as king over Syria. Also you shall anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi as king over Israel. And Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Meholah you shall anoint as prophet in your place. It shall be that whoever escapes the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill; and whoever escapes the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill. Yet I have reserved seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” 

1 Kings 19:9-18