Is the Church Ready to Be the Church? – [Part 2]

Ask yourself the question: “Is the Church ready to be the Church?” In the last post, I raised this question because of an apparent position that many in the body of Christ seem to have taken in response to government issued directives that not only contradict constitutional rights, but also biblical mandates. Is this the Church that Christ spoke of? 

The Church as Jesus spoke of was one that was not weak or subservient to world systems. When he said that he had given the Church the keys to the Kingdom for the purpose of binding and loosing, we think this is somehow metaphorical or some super spiritual act only displayed through the act of prayer. While it is true that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds (2 Cor. 10:4), this does not mean that there is not a call to actively transform culture. Even more, transforming culture should not just be viewed through the act of discipling the nation, it must also be viewed through the act of engaging and even resisting the very strongholds that are an affront to the Kingdom of God.

In fact, Paul the apostle spoke of a people that must be renewed in their thinking (according to a holy, moral and ethical standard) but not be conformed to the present age’s system of thinking, values and customs (Romans 12:2). President Lincoln, although many question whether he was a man of faith, lived a life that challenge the nation and those in the southern states that believed it could continue to thrive as a nation that enslaved, abused, and even killed Africans, Asians, and Native Americans.

Martin Luther King, Jr. challenged a nation to go beyond simple acceptance of a segregated society, to remind it that the American Dream was about justice and equality for all its citizens. He led a peaceful protest that shined a spotlight on those inherent inequities and injustices that no only permeated the Church but spilled out into the prevailing cultural thinking within the nation. Why now, does it appear that many in the Church are content to remain silent and not confront those who would love nothing more than to void the Church of her power. 

We recently celebrated both Passover and Resurrection Day in April. Passover looks back at the protection God provided the people of Israel during a time when a plague was unleashed upon the land in Egypt. The chosen people had spent the previous 400 years in a prosperous land as slaves and contributing to its economic progress, and at the same time suffered the loss of generations of children through slaughtered and sacrificed children of a people who feared the Hebrew nation would outgrow that of the Egyptians and overpower them. They dwelled in a land that worshiped idols, yet prayed to the God of their fathers for salvation. The Passover covered them and set the stage for their exodus to their Promised Land. Does any of this sound familiar?

By the end of month of May, we will be celebrating Pentecost. On one such Pentecost Feast, there was an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the land. It was the promised comforter that Jesus had spoken of who would come in his stead, as he returned to His Father’s right hand. The Holy Spirit was poured out to empower this new Church to do what Jesus did and to stand in the day of evil. There is no doubt that the days are evil. Yet, does the Church stand? Is this not the time that the Church should be standing, speaking and being who she has been called to be?

If it be true that the Church is a royal priesthood and holy nation, then as such, this prophetic generation needs to be like Jeremiah as much as it is like Jesus. We love it when we speak of the loving Jesus who had compassion for the sick, afflicted, and the weak. Yet, we forget the same Jesus who “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword (Mathew 10:34).” The path of Christ separates because it is a path that goes against conventional thinking of the ways of this world. Jeremiah was told of the type of prophet he had been called to be. In that description, it said he was set up over the nations to “root out, pull down, destroy, pull down, to plant and to build (Jeremiah 1:10).” Nothing here sounds weak or complacent. 

In this year of the mouth, this age of distinction, the Church must be the Church, find her voice and speak boldly, often, and with power. She cannot remain content to hope and pray change. She must bring it through who she’s willing to see in seats of authority in every sphere of culture. She must not accept that man has the Church‘s interests at heart. She must secure herself with Jesus through Holy Spirit guidance.