Tag: gospel

The Consequence of the Crisis

What Happens When the Church is Ill Equipped for Its Commission?

In my last post, I suggested that the greatest crisis facing today’s modern church was the widespread ignorance of the gospel.  Now, notice that I said the church has this problem, not the world.  We expect that the world would be generally unaware of the true biblical, gospel message, but… the Church?  Really?

Yes, really.

And if the Church is even somewhat illiterate to the Gospel, the consequences are no less dire.  An ill-informed Church promoting a distorted and diluted Gospel message has the same effect as not preaching the Gospel at all.  Its commissioned purpose is to proclaim the Good Message of Jesus Christ unto Salvation.  Without a pure gospel, can you have authentic salvation? 

Turns out, this is not a new problem for the church.

Even in the history of the early church Paul issues the same warning to the believers in Galatia.

I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.  But if even we, or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!   Galations 1:6-8

Paul issued the same admonition to the Corinthian church.  He hotly chastised them for being so willing to accept “another Jesus whom we have not preached”, receiving a “different spirit” other than the Holy Spirit and accepting a “different gospel” which he had not delivered to them.   (2Corinthians 11:3-4)

Sadly, many so-called believers today have bought into the “inclusion and tolerance” gospel the world is advocating.  They espouse a Jesus of their own making; a one-size-fits-all savior that simply came to make the world happy, rich and comfortable in its own skin. They are not receiving, through this “gospel”, the rebirth and regeneration that only the Spirit of God can deliver.  Folks, this false spirit, gospel and savior will not grant us solid shelter in the coming storm. 

There is another consequence to this widespread lack of comprehension of the basic gospel message:

And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.   Mark 8:34-35

A church not schooled or confident in its basic, fundamental message will not risk life and reputation to proclaim it. 

To be completely sold out to the appointment, you must first absolutely buy into it with everything you are and everything you have. Sadly, much of the so-called church today has not done this.  They want to follow Jesus and keep their life.  Not only their life, but their BEST life, an ABUNTANT life, and a PROSPEROUS life.  This false gospel proclaims that this is the evidence of Gods blessing in their life when, in fact, the true gospel bids a man to come and die to himself.  This is the true evidence of the real gospel of Jesus Christ. That one would be willing to lay down his life for sake of Christ and His gospel message.

Now trust me when I say that I am not pointing an accusing finger at you or anyone else. I thought I knew what the gospel was, and it wasn’t until I felt the Lord strongly pressing into my heart that I needed to share it that I questioned my own comprehension of it.  After many months of hard study, I concluded that my own handle on the gospel had been shallow and weak which in turn, paralyzed my desire to proclaim it.   

And it did more than that.  It blinded me.

Because I did not understand the POWER of the gospel to transform the world around me, I was willfully unaware of it’s LOSTNESS.   I had no desire to reach out to people who were obviously held in the bondage of their own sin because I did not see it as such.  Instead, I would create a safe distance from people whose dysfunction disrupted my life, even in the simplest of ways.  I had to learn what it meant to “love my neighbor as myself” and recognize that all men everywhere were my neighbors.  I had to be CONCERNED with their souls and not put off by their sins. I loved myself enough (even in my own sin) to receive salvation through the gospel of Jesus Christ, did I love them enough to share it?

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…(Romans 1:16).

You see, it’s not that the Church today isn’t busy.  Oh, it is.  It is busy fighting hunger, fighting social injustice, fighting against abortion, same sex marriage and government corruption. The church is busy fighting with itself over heresy, doctrines, worship techniques and territories.  The Church is busy trying to make a name for itself.    It’s busy fighting the issues and as a result it is tired, battered and bleeding.  All because it forgot its true purpose-

To declare the Gospel!

The source of every woe and plight of mankind is the nature of his heart and his loyalty to his kingdom.  A man is devoted to the kingdom of darkness and its culture because his own heart is darkened by sin.    Of course, we want to end all of the issues the Church is fighting against, but should’t the real solution be to change hearts so that men would not WANT to do them? Proclaiming the true gospel message carries with it that power of transformation, the power to deliver from darkness, and the power to break free from blindness and demonic strongholds. 

We, as the Church, have to be willing to proclaim this message of the Gospel to our lost and dying neighbors at any cost. 

Can we even call ourselves true followers of Jesus Christ if we are unwilling to do this?

 I urge you, if you have never done this, examine your own heart and mind and ask yourself, what am I willing to die to for the sake of Christ and the gospel? Am I willing to sacrifice myself for the sake of my lost and dying neighbor? What is prohibiting me from sharing the gospel? Is it fear? Is it because I am afraid of rejection or because my own ignorance will be exposed? My guess is, it is all of the above.

What is the answer to this crisis?

Each individual, everyone who claims to follow Christ, must make it their own responsibilty to know the Gospel as it is presented in the Word of God. Search it out. Study it. Pray that God gives you a passion and desire to know it and then to share it. Pray that God opens your blind eyes to see the sick, lost and dying all around you and pray that He gives you a heart to love them.

Friends, we do not have time on our side. The storm approaches. The fringe of it is already here. People you love may stand unprepared to face it. We must get our own feet planted firmly in our faith and in the word of God so that we can fulfill our commission proclaim the Gospel!

That is worth fighting for!

The Greatest Crisis of the Church Today

I believe the church today is in a crisis of epic proportions.

Now, not many of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ would disagree with me, but they may be surprised to know what I think the real nature of the crisis is.

It is true that there is no lack of conflict that could create crisis for the modern church; whether it be the increasingly humanistic worldview of the present-day culture, religious persecution, or the threat of government overreach, I do not think they are the origin of our current crisis situation.

In my opinion, the most pressing and dire crisis of the church today is its ignorance of the gospel.  Yes, you heard me right.  The biggest obstacle keeping the church from fulfilling it’s greatest and most foundational commission – is ignorance of the gospel.

And this is how I think we got here.

In the early 2000’s, somebody decided we needed to make churches “seeker friendly”.  There was the idea that if we made church feel more like the world, it would attract more people who were considering Christianity as a viable choice in the smorgasbord of world religions to choose from.  As recruitment methods, we threw out the etiquette of dressing in our Sunday finest, hipped up the music and provided donuts and coffee to go along with their watered down, non-offensive, “Jesus loves you” messages.  Now, nearly twenty years later, we have a whole generation of people who call themselves Christians but really do not have a clear, hard and deliverable handle on the true gospel message. 

Oh, they think they do. Only it does not line up entirely with the gospel found in the Word of God. 

Now, there are plenty of resources out there, if you care to search them out, that will lay out for you the ills and contaminations of the counterfeit gospels.  And I applaud them.  Such as these would include the social gospel, the prosperity gospel, and the green gospel, not to mention the versions of the gospel that would attempt to blend thoughts and practices that have their source in the occult.  Trust me when I tell you that they are out there. And if you are not rooted deeply in the Word of God, it would be easy to buy into some of them. They SOUND good.  They have a warm, fuzzy feel to them.  They are inclusive.  They appeal to human plight and woes.

But they are poisonous. And they are benign.  Powerless and ineffective to offer any authentic hope.

I am not going to here address all the counterfeits.  What I am going to do, however, is to attempt to show you the True Gospel presented to us in the bible, and to prove to you how necessary it is for the church to have a good, strong purchase on it.  Without that, we will not be competent nor compelling to accomplish our mandate to preach the gospel and make disciples of all nations.

Without a clear, commanding grasp on the gospel, we will be afraid to share our faith, fearful that we are not able to refute arguments and disputes that go against what we believe.  Without a good understanding of the gospel, Christians will not even see the need to share their faith.  They will not have the confidence to say “Jesus is the only way” if they do not understand WHY He is!  They will have no defense when the world calls them bigoted and judgmental as they take a stand against the tides of lawlessness invading our culture or stand for biblical principles in their lives.

How many people reject a gospel they have never heard?  They have never heard it because the Christian community at large does not have the confidence to share a core belief concept that even they do not understand.

And how many people are lost and dying in this world because of the ignorance and apathy of a church whose sole commission was to proclaim its only remedy and hope?  The world goes along its merry way down the wide path to destruction blind to it’s NEED for a different way.  In fact, the church, for the most part, is skipping along the down same path!

Guys, we have got to shake out of this apathetic slumber we are in and start being concerned for our neighbor.  

We must fulfill the greatest commandment of the Law;

“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart,

And with all your soul,

And with all your mind.

This is the great and foremost commandment.

The second is like it,

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”

Matthew 22:36-40

Do you LOVE the enough to share the gospel with them?

To love your neighbor is to be concerned with his eternal life. 

To love your neighbor is to recognize that the guy you passed at Walmart is your neighbor.  The waitress that served you your breakfast is your neighbor.  The mailman is your neighbor.  Your NEIGHBOR is your neighbor!

Let’s dive into the word of God and discover the true gospel message.  Let’s work to educate and equip ourselves to reach a blind and decaying world with the only HOPE it has in Jesus Christ!  The time to act is right now.  Time is running out.  No crisis the world faces today is greater than the crisis of ignorance of the Gospel!