Not long ago I was sent a sermon by a friend and was asked what I thought of it. It was from a denomination that has had a lot of upheaval in the past decade. I watched about 10 minutes of this message and that’s all I could stomach.
In 10 minutes, this “pastor” was told adults in the congregation that children have a better grasp of morality than they do. He explained that the morality of 60 years ago was vastly different from the morality of today. He reasoned that today, hurting someone’s feelings is a bigger sin than sexual sin. He also alluded to the idea that only certain sections of the Bible are truly inspired, and the rest are just the thoughts and teachings of men.
This pastor spent the 10 minutes that I watched talking about how important polls and surveys were. He gave them more credence than Scripture itself.
To top this all off, he went through the data on their church, specifically. He said out of 17,000 active members in their church, 742 of them lived in a homosexual lifestyle of some sort. He conveniently left out the data for how many were living in heterosexual sin outside the confines of marriage. Just an FYI those who are heterosexual and not married, but are engaged in sexual activity are just as much in violation of the scriptures as homosexuals.
I finally had to turn it off. My heart was so full of anger and sadness that I could not take it anymore. My whole attitude changed because of this.
This “church” spits in the face of the commands of God. It made a mockery of the Scriptures. The thing that disturbed me and pained me the most was the thought of the tens of thousands of people blindly following this church’s teaching with no thought for truth. As a result, they very well could be headed straight to the pit of hell. Just so you know I'm not happy over that fact, my heart is broken over this.
Why this is happening?
PARENTS: You are not leading your families well. Specifically, MEN, you’ve neglected your
responsibility. Therefore, you’ve allowed wolves to creep in and take your family captive. We need men to take their role in spiritual leadership seriously, with the gravity the calling deserves. Yes, I’m talking all men, myself included. We’ve got to stop being distracted by so many other things. Your wife and kids are right in front of you. Start with your family and watch as godly families create godly churches and communities.
LEAD THEM! Be the servant who will give up his life for them. Take steps to lead your family to the feet of Jesus by studying His Word together.
PRAY WITH THEM! Take time each day to pray over them. To pray for them! It does not have to be 'perfect'. Your prayers must be heartfelt from a humble repentant heart. Pray for family for events and things coming up in your life, ask God to protect and bless, pray to God repenting of your sins so your family sees you do it. Then help them in their prayers.
TALK MORE. One of the biggest distractions is the mobile phone. If we are not careful, they are going to be the death of us! I’m guilty of this, too. Just ask my kids. They want to talk more, and if they don’t find someone in me to talk about things, be sure they will find it elsewhere.
GET IN THE WORD MORE! My tribe needs me to be in God’s Word more! They need to see me in it. I need to lead by example. Open your Bible and pour over the text. Start in Psalms or Proverbs. Chapter 1 in both is a good place to start and just read. God is faithful. His Word never returns void. The beauty of the Word of God is that the promise is that every text is profitable (2 Tim 3:16-17). Read it alone and then read it together. READ!
BE MORE INVOLVED IN YOUR CHURCH! What is happening at your church is going to matter in 10,000 years, either way. Good or bad. And if you’re involved, you can help make sure it’s good stuff that is happening at your church! Be PRESENT! Be committed to serving and ministering in your church. Go all in for the Kingdom of God and His work in your community of faith.
My prayer is that God changes the hearts of men, mine included! We need Jesus more than we need anything else! We really need to be focused on things that are eternal.
Our flesh is our biggest problem! We need to stop focusing on ourselves and start focusing on Jesus and what HE WANTS!
God help us!
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