Several years ago, I heard an illustration that I think is a great picture of the lives of too many of us who have trouble "living the Christian life," wonder why it's so hard, and then too many just give up. Heck i seen so many of my friends leavign the faith.. sometimes it makes me wonder, am i right or were they right.
I've also heard people say we need a spiritual revival in this country and around the world. Hell yeah, why not ? so i thought.
Well.. All in all, truly madly deeply, that depends on what is being revived.
Pardon the thought but if its offensive or disturbing, i'm truly sorry but if you will, take a moment to tink of a dead body at a funeral.
Just as everyone gathers around the casket, inevitably someone will make a comment about how "natural" the deceased person looks.
I'm sorry, but just putting more makeup and more fancy clothes on a dead body does not do anytin to bring about any positive change in that dead body. And make him *God Forbid* to sit straight up and say "Thank you"
Well, unless there's some kind of miracle--in this case, resurrection power--the dead body will continue to decay, and after a while, if all else stays the same, nobody will want to be around a rotting, stinking decomposing corpse.
But how many of us are like this spiritually? How many of us have played the church game our entire lives but haven't gotten serious about really following Christ? Anyone can do that--I did it for the first year of my life, just going through the motions, doing what I wanted instead of what Christ wanted, and all it did was push me further away from God when my intention was just to stand at the gates of the church where i can hear and be seen but not near enuff to do anything... I was sick of trying to be lord of my own life instead of letting Christ take His rightful place on the throne.
And I think the problem with so many of us today is that too many of us AREN'T sick and tired of going through the motions. We'd rather live as spiritual corpses*Tink of those hopping vampires in those B-grade Horror Cheena Flicks yet?*, stinking up things everywhere we go while trying to convince everyone we're not really dead, in fact, that we look pretty decent.
And we wonder why so many people think Christianity is a joke. It's because too many of us who claim to follow Christ really just stink because we haven't let Him really come into our lives and do more than just put makeup on a dead body. This includes me at times as well.
We don't need a mere resuscitation of a dead body if that body doesn't really change--we need Christ's resurrection power in our lives(Read Romans), but we'll never have it as long as we're in the driver's seat. Too many of us are in the driver's seat in our own lives, and we wonder why Christ isn't turning our world upside down, much less changing the world(ED: Remembers Angie).
He would if we'd let Him.
He promised to fill us with the power of His resurrection
He would drag the dead, rotting corpse of our old life only if we'd let Him.
We need revival if we've just gotten spiritually lazy or flabby or if we've started to stray from where Christ is calling us to be.
But if you've never stopped "doing Christian things" and started really following Christ, what are you waiting for? I won't post it here for the sake of space, but I'd truly like to encourage you to read Matthew 7:13-29, Luke 6:27-49, and the entire chapter of John 6 and make a note to yourself about what you can't do without Christ--Jesus told us in John 15:5 that we can do NOTHING without Him--but when we let Him truly be Lord of our lives, nothing can stop Him in us.
And then we'll see the only real change that will mean anything at all, and which will last forever.
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