“…But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 3:13,14.
With about a month or two of sheltering in place behind us now and the country only very slowly and cautiously reopening, most of us are sick of self-imposed quarantining. Our “normal” disappeared suddenly and with little warning, the temporary normal is stressful and the new normal is uncertain. I don’t know about you, but from time to time I find myself toying with the desire for things to go back to the way they were. Sound familiar? I believe that desire befell the Israelites in the desert who were sick of their temporary normal, including the quail and the manna diet every day and no notion of what the Promised Land would even be like or when they’d get there.
And so the temptation we face is wishing for the familiarity of the “way things were.” Our comfort zones, filled with sports, entertainment, abundance of consumer goods, freedom of movement, busy social schedules, and what have you. Bad idea. It’s spiritually dangerous.
Because, just like the people of Israel needed to be freed from their slavery and go through the purifying experience of the desert before being released into the Promised Land, we, too need to be set free from slavery. Whaa…? Slavery??? Us???
Yes, slavery. Us. Sheltering in place has helped us realize that we were slaves to our creature comforts, our smart phones, our busy schedules, our entertainment options, and our comfort zones. Those caused us to put God off to the side in case he’s needed, dethroning him from the daily pre-eminence He deserves and needs in our hearts and homes, and in the use of our time, attention and finances.
First of all, He deserves preeminence because He left divinity behind to become the Son of Man, homeless and often rejected, to reveal what God’s kingdom was really like and then to voluntarily subject Himself to betrayal, false accusations, ridicule, humiliation, torture and the cruelest execution ever invented by a human civilization. All to purchase our forgiveness, our redemption, our adoption as sons and daughters of God, our daily access to the throne of God, our freedom to delight in God, God’s counsel to us, God’s provision and protection, and His very life in us by the Holy Spirit.
Secondly, we need Him to have preeminence in our daily lives because, frankly, without Him we can do nothing (John 15:5). We are utterly dependent on His presence and grace to fight temptations, to serve Him well, to grow our faith, to exercise our spiritual gifts, to bear fruit.
And none of that happens without a strong, daily, constant abiding in Him through prayer and the Word.
Because we have shoved the Lord off to the side in our personal lives, we have taken that to the way we do church as well.
Revival leaders have recently lamented that the church in the US has by and large turned their backs on the basics of church life as we see it lived in the book of Acts, in order to make it fun for “seekers” to go to church. Programs, entertainment, gorgeously appointed campuses that suck millions of dollars to be kept up, paid professional staff, marketing consultants, multimedia, have slowly but surely replaced the raw power of the Holy Spirit, prayer meetings, safe, non-judgmental, loving environments where Christians exercise their gifts to build one another up (instead of paying staff to do ministry), and passionate evangelism and missions.
I thought about this recently as I prayed about the future of the church in the US. It struck me that we have circled the wagons and erected invisible walls aimed at keeping the “church family” comfortable, not realizing that those walls keep out unbelievers and even seekers, no matter how hard we try to be welcoming.
If I were a “seeker,” I would feel intimidated having to drive to a colossal building, find a place to park, enter through large doors into unfamiliar space, get lost in the crowds and feel isolated by the groups of people that all seem to know each other, try to fit into an equally unfamiliar church culture, and experience a church service that looks and feels like show but does very little to get me connected to God or fellow believers.
“Enough is enough,” says the Lord. And that is the purpose of pestilence such as this. Not only did it shut down the world and force it to do some serious thinking about the way things were, it shut down our money-sucking campuses and trimmed back our busy schedules. Because God is both righteous and loving, this “desert experience”, the Great Sabbath, The Great Pause, or whatever you want to call it, is an opportunity.
An opportunity we can’t afford to miss.
It is an act of grace, and a necessary next step in God’s master plan for the end of the world, His triumph over evil, and the ingathering of a people of His own possession to proclaim His excellencies, in this world (1 Peter 1:9) and the next (Revelation 7:9-17).
God’s grace – our opportunity.
We know from 2nd Chronicles 7:14 that God desires a response from us that involves humbling ourselves, prayer, seeking His face, and the uncomfortable part: considering our ways, letting His Holy Spirit point out areas for reform, and repenting from anything and everything that surfaces as an offense to God.
First, in our own hearts and homes:
- Perhaps the ruthless elimination of unnecessary hurry and busy-ness that leaves us no time for God?
- Perhaps idols need to be brought down like sports, television, food, home improvement (Haggai 1:4)?
- Perhaps prayerlessness, or unfamiliarity with listening to God?
- Perhaps the elimination of hidden sin that grieves the Holy Spirit?
Then, in the church:
- Perhaps the centrality of corporate prayer needs to be revisited?
- Perhaps a return to the basics of connecting deeply with God, constructively with one another, and lovingly with a hurting society through passionate evangelism and missions?
- Perhaps the enormous amount of people dialing into our online services that wouldn’t darken the doors of our buildings could be a hint to take the walls off the church, so to speak, and bring more of the church to the community in creative and welcoming ways?
- Perhaps our leadership could be freed up to equip their congregations to engage their spiritual gifts and do the ministry, instead of being expected to do it for them?
- Perhaps the gospel we preach ought to include sin, repentance, and surrender to the Lordship of Christ instead of trying to be non-offensive by eliminating those terms?
That is the kind of spiritual awakening in the church that I am praying for!
But wait… there’s more. We can’t afford to miss this opportunity to restore God to His rightful place in our hearts, our homes and our churches because of what is still to come!
The necessity of walking closely with God
This is where I turn a little bit alarmist. However, the intention is not to induce fear, but to encourage victorious faith!
The global pandemic has offered us glimpses of what may be coming down the pike as part of the new normal for the world. And it is beginning to look more and more like the stuff associated with the End Times that we read about in the Bible, complete with world domination by an anti-Christ whose elevation and demise will signal the end of the end, so to speak.
Here are couple of those glimpses:
- A government’s ability to set aside constitutional freedoms in the interest of national security, and a population’s willingness to let them do it in exchange for promised safety.
- Advances in tracking technology, with over 19 countries using GPS tracking on people’s cell phones. The reason is to track where the virus is going, but it quietly puts the technology in place for future, perhaps less benevolent, use.
- The sudden reliance on online technology to keep companies, churches and families connected is a blessing and a curse. The blessing is the ease of connection. The curse is that the internet spies on you constantly and can now do so even more. Want to know how? Buy and read the May 2020 edition of Reader’s Digest.
- A Wisconsin company has taken a page of the book of several Dutch companies and implanted microchips in its employees’ forearms that will allow them to identity themselves, open doors, log into security systems and purchase food in the cafeteria.
- China owns half the world it seems and has made no secret of wanting to expand its world influence, which includes advancing its communist, very anti-Christian agenda.
- The world’s health experts are saying that “social distancing” will be with us for the foreseeable future, and that the coronavirus may well be an annually returning threat.
- The Bible tells us that pestilences will be compounded with natural disasters, wars, famines and droughts – the birthing pains of the end times (Matthew 24:8)
In the meantime, Americans are waking up to the fragility of mankind and our need to return to being One Nation Under God. More and more people are now saying they are praying and reading their Bibles. So perhaps at least at the grassroots level people are realizing how far we’ve drifted from being one nation under God – which is what many in the prophetic community are calling the “firewall” between Satan and the fulfillment of his plans for the world.
And so the opportunity for repentance and reform is being afforded not only to God’s people but also to the US as a nation since it purports to be “under God.”
As the church goes, so goes the country. Repentance, prayer, and passionate pursuit of God will result in forgiveness and healing of the land (2 Chronicles 7:14). What could that look like? Perhaps record numbers of people will find their way back to God. Perhaps the social and political systems will be brought back in balance. Perhaps our slide into moral turpitude, defense of baby-killing and celebration of sin will cause people to hunger and thirst for holiness. Perhaps the economic upheaval will cause us to rediscover the difference between what we need and what we want. Perhaps healing of the land includes healing of our soul from its anxieties and depression and stress and obsessive self-medication. Perhaps it would lead to compassionate capitalism, in which the rich share their wealth with the poor – not by government mandate, but from the heart.
Unfortunately the opposite is also true: our departure from the centrality of God and the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives and churches has opened the doors for our nation to move away from being “under God” in leaps and bounds. If we continue in the way we were, this will get worse.
We must press on
For all those reasons we cannot yield to the temptation to return to what we once knew. What is happening is bigger than we are. The rapid unfolding of world events means tribulation and possibly persecution – the very things Jesus prepared His disciples for just before He gave them their Great Commission.
That is why He said we are to be like branches on the Vine.
That is why He said that “apart from Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)
That is why Jesus said, “no one who puts his hand on the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
(Luke 9:62).
And that is why we must make the most of this opportunity to get close to God, to learn to listen to Him, to involve Him in everything we do, to trust Him fully and depend on Him for everything. At home. Every day. And in church. Together.
Jude 20 & 21 puts it well: “But you, beloved, build yourselves up in your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.”
God is the God of our present and our future. He stands at the ready with oceans of love, comfort, counsel, provision, protection, direction. He has given you His very own Spirit to indwell you to give you gifts to build one another up and bear fruit for the glory of the Father. He heals, He transforms, He forgives, He strengthens. He fills your heart with joy and peace and delight in Him. He can do signs and wonders and miracles to empower the gospel.
But only if we seek Him. Not just during a crisis, but every day of our lives. Out of love, not just out of need.
My prayer is that the new normal will be a people truly possessed by God: whose daily lives are filled with worship, adoration, prayer, intercession, instruction – overflowing into loving, interdependent community and passionate outreach.
With all that’s coming down the pike, we can’t afford not to. He deserves to have our full trust and we need to have a strong faith. And a strong bond, because the time may come that we’ll need to share our resources so that no one has a need (Acts 4:34).
So press on through the pandemic. And the next one. And the next one. Till we get to our Promised Land. The Upward Call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:14)