There is one issue that continually burns its way into my heart. This issue is so vital that it must form the foundation of our entire Christian life. The issue is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
We can write about and talk about everything else under the sun but until the church comes into a revelation of who Christ really is in all His resurrected glory and a revelation of Christ within me, the hope of glory, then all else is utterly futile and we are going nowhere.
I have been churched, so to speak, for 54 years and born again of the Spirit for 32 of those years. The last six years I have begun to walk where I have never walked before. This is a road that not one of us can afford to miss. This is a road to the full measure of the Lord Jesus Christ and to the glory of my Father’s heart.
This is a road that only the Holy Spirit of the living God can lead you down. And you have got to want it and desire it, with all of your heart.
This is hard to articulate because there is so much and my heart overflows for want of sharing so deep a truth. It is also hard because it calls for a raw and sometimes painful honesty but it is, as God’s word teaches, the truth that sets us free.
All the years I have spent being a part of one fellowship or another have somehow all followed a similar pattern – and they have all left me feeling that there is something more, something much more! There have been so many years of frustration, and longing to break out into something deeper and something more real.
It was frustrating because I thought I was in the right place and doing all the right things and attending lots of meetings and hearing sermon after sermon and reading book after book and going to prayer meeting after prayer meeting. But something very vital was missing.
I always had questions. I always wanted to dig deeper. I was always held back by the church system and the fact that everything was organised and pre-planned-by man! I was part and parcel of that system and I didn’t know any better. However I wanted to know better.
Where was the Holy Spirit in all this? I began to feel as though I was attending boredroom meetings. (The spelling mistake is intentional) I was cross with myself because I began to lose interest in “church” and I suffered terrible guilt because I felt that “church” had become a chore, a burden and all the endless meetings, programmes and conferences’ a chain round my neck.
I was doing something I had been brought up to do. I was attending church wasn’t I and I was involved in all the necessary activities of the church wasn’t I? And so what was wrong?
While driving to church one Sunday and knowing I would have to sit in yet another chair and fellowship with the back of someone’s head and obediently and attentively listen to another sermon and sing the same “praise and worship” songs over and over again and, yet again, watch one or two people drive the whole service while the rest of us remained spectators, forever! Was this it? Is this all there is?
There was so much in my heart I wanted to share. There was so much in other hearts I wanted to know. How many times were we told to pay attention and not think about our Sunday lunch? Well one Sunday I finally had to admit to myself, as the elder preached on and on, that I had become one of those who think of their Sunday lunch during church! The word guilt will not describe my feelings. I was horrified. – Nan (To Be Continued)
Post published in: Faith