Taking an assessment

“Let’s cut to the chase. After nearly two decades of studying Christian churches in America, I’m convinced that the typical church as we know it today has a rapidly expiring shelf life.” This dire assessment of the state of the church begins George Barna’s 1998 book, The Second Coming of The Church. He continued:
“Americans today are more devoted to seeking spiritual enlightenment today than at any previous time during the twentieth century. Yet, at this moment of optimum opportunity, Christianity is having less impact on people’s perspectives and behaviors than ever. Why is that? Because a growing majority of people have dismissed the Christian faith as weak, outdated, and irrelevant.
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“Interestingly, the stumbling block for the Church is not its theology but its failure to apply what is believes in compelling ways. The downfall of the Church has not been the content of the message but its failure to practice those truths. Christians have been their own worst enemies when it comes to showing the world what authentic, biblical Christianity looks like – and why it represents a viable alternative to materialism, existentialism, and mysticism, and the other doctrines of popular culture.”

Proverbs 23:7 (KJV) "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee."

Here is the heart of what Barna concluded: “Most Christians – not those who merely call themselves Christians but those who have confessed their sinfulness and have asked Jesus Christ to be their Lord and Savior – have fallen pray to the same disease as their worldly counterparts. We think and behave no differently from anyone else.”

In most churches it is as if discipleship, living a life that is continuously becoming morphed into the likeness of Christ is purely optional. We liberally drink in God’s grace, but kindly pass on the parts of Christianity that would radically transform the way we live.
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It is as if Christians have forgotten that there is a cost to following Christ. And in our malaise, we have gotten too comfortable, not only in our pew, but far too comfortable in our world. Our faith has become as casual as the clothes we have begun to wear on Sunday morning.

When we pass an accident on the road many of us are guilty of looking back and trying to see what's happened putting ourselves and everyone else on the road at risk for the same thing.  This is what I see in the churches today. We are all so busy looking at what others are doing that we fail to do what God has called us to do. We forget that we are not to look like the world but stand out so that the world can see Jesus.

Challenge for today: Take an assessment of what God has called you to do and compare it with what you are doing. For example we are in the first phase of a 21 Day Fast. Many are looking for ways to eat and be legal than looking for ways to do what God called them to do, fast. Fasting means to cover the mouth. In essence then fasting means not to let anything into the mouth. Fasting in the church today looks like a creative attempt to figuring out what can be called a liquid and how to make it taste good.

Christianity may not always taste good. We are to die to what we want, so others can get what they need. If we do that? We will stand out, because we have stood up and did what He asked us to do.