The Greatest Need of the Church As the end-time scenario continues to unfold globally, God is beginning to place His true children in the roles He assigned to them for the end-time. And for them to succeed in these roles, God wants them to be well trained in the way of the cross of Christ. Sadly, most of our churches, as presently constituted, are not well positioned to deliver the mandate of raising battle-fit disciples for the Kingdom. I will explain this in more details shortly. God’s end-time army will survive and thrive ONLY on one basis – COMPLETE OBEDIENCE TO GOD’S WORD. It is obedience to God’s word that will make God’s will to be done on earth as it is done in heaven. This is non-negotiable for the generation of believers that will usher in God’s reign of righteousness on earth. In times past, the church got away with varying degrees of deviation from God’s word, partly because judgment was much further down the road. But today, judgment is drawing nearer daily as we can see all around us. From Romans 13:11-12, we can deduce that an understanding of the times must precipitate a change of direction – from slumber to watchfulness, from lukewarmness to fervency, from carelessness to uprightness. Today, the church can clearly see that the time of judgment is drawing nearer, but we are not committing to a change of direction – both at the corporate level as a church, and as individuals. Brothers and sisters, times have indeed changed! And we all have to respond accordingly. An African proverb says, ‘When the drum beat changes, dancers must of necessity change the dance steps to harmonise with the beats’. It is either the church urgently repents, and re-aligns with heaven’s purpose, or else, the church will miss God’s purpose at this end-time. And if you sit complacently in the church at this period, you are in danger of drifting with the church. We are getting to days where believers may have to choose between Jesus and church as we know it today. If the church is to deliver on God’s purpose for these perilous days, we need to urgently return to God’s original design for the church. The design that yielded great dividends for the Kingdom in the days of the Apostles of Christ. Their era was the opening sequence of God’s agenda for salvation, our era is the closing sequence. Therefore, as it was then, so must it be today – we must return to the pattern that was given to the Apostles. We have deviated greatly…. And it is easy to see how we have deviated. We changed the leadership structure that God ordained for the church. And the faithfulness of church leaders to Bible text became selective. From these two foundational anomalies grew a lot of the erroneous church’s precept and traditions that we follow today. Please read the book of Acts and the various Epistles, you will see that God NEVER gave the church a leadership structure with a pastor as the head – like some sort of managing director. This structure is entirely man-contrived. In God’s eternal plan for the church, He designated church leadership to be under a team of ‘elders’ that will co-ordinate the various offices and gifts in the church with a view “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ…” (Ephesians 4:12). For this biblical pattern of church leadership, please study Acts 14:23, 15:22, 20:17, Hebrews 13:17, Titus 1:5, James 5:14, 1 peter 5:1-4, etc. Because the leadership structure became skewed, the foundation on which we have been building the church has been faulty. And from that faulty foundation, we have been multiplying errors in the precepts and traditions that we have evolved for the church over the decades. This is why, as Christ’s disciples, we cannot sheepishly follow all that we hear in the church today. We need to go back to the Bible. We need to be more discerning. We have now reached a stage where God is no longer winking at the ignorance in the church. He is now opening our eyes to know that something is amiss. That is why it is becoming clearer to many believers that we are no longer building God’s Kingdom, but the dynasty of men and denominations. Contrary to God’s clear instructions, we now ordain women as leaders over men in the church. We manipulate God’s flock to part with their resources under all sorts of guises that undermine the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross of Calvary. Caring for the poor and destitute in the church is no longer the paramount focus of our expenditure. The spirit of sacrifice that the cross of Christ embodies is no longer at the heart of church life. Believers are now being trained to focus on what we can get from the Gospel – blessings, healing, deliverance from enemies, financial breakthrough, etc. It is not surprising that our churches are being populated with millions of believers, but FEWER disciples. Yet, Jesus did not give us the Great Commission to raise believers – His command was “Go therefore and make DISCIPLES of all nations....” (Matthew 28:19) Unless there’s urgent repentance, the church will continue in slumber as the Day of Judgment draws closer. God is warning the church to go back to the old paths (Jeremiah 6:16). May we beseech you, by the mercies of God, not to get too cosy in the lukewarmness of the church today. Please seek God with all your heart, and let Him give you clear-cut directions on how you should use the life He gave you – for which you will one day give account. That day of accountability is drawing nearer daily. Thanks for reading and God bless.
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 07:45:17 +0000
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