TRIVIAL PURSUIT

When you compare the church of today with the New Testament Church, one could be forgiven for considering most of today’s offering as a trivial pursuit. The church today, with all its ritual, religion and recreation is a pursuit of the trivial engendered to keep a few in jobs and the majority contented.

In a recent meeting I said that the cross was the beginning of the end. The Old Testament was about God’s chosen people the Jews who were meant to reflect the nature and character of God. The end result is that they failed miserably.

Then came phase two, the life and death of Jesus where he successfully reflected the nature and character of God culminating in resurrection life.

The third phase which we are in now is the church which God brought about…yes you have guessed right, to reflect the character and nature of God with the end result that Jesus the bridegroom will be presented a bride that is perfect.

That puts paid to those who say that we won’t be perfect until we get to heaven.

I believe that the end of phase three when Jesus comes to collect his bride is up to us. There is a saying that every generation has the propensity to bring back the King. What will make that happen is a bride without spot or wrinkle.

That won’t happen just yet as we are more interested in ourselves and what makes us happy than what God wants for his Kingdom. How do I know this? The thing that we spend the least time doing is talking to God and receiving his instructions, commonly known as prayer. I know of a church leadership that corporately spends about 10 minutes a month praying for God’s direction.

The church that is making headway is the one that is suffering. You know, the bit that we don’t like and try to avoid at all costs. The church in China, Russia, India, Iraq, Iran, parts of Africa all of which are under attack on a daily basis are the ones who are making a difference.

The western church which is more about comfort than suffering is going backwards which is not surprising as the opposition in many cases is prepared to die for their cause. The best we can do in many cases is drag ourselves to a Sunday morning meeting, which in themselves are devoid of the power of the Holy Spirit so why would anyone be excited about them anyway.

Most of them have lapsed into a formal deadness and most people go out the same way that they came in.

If Jesus does not return in your generation, you only have yourself to blame because he said he would come back for bride without spot or wrinkle. Are you worried about the spot or wrinkle on your skin? Don’t be. Get worried about the spot or wrinkle on your heart.