This was sent to me from a dear friend in Canada after I wrote about my dream of Ezekiel 16 and apostacy. It brings me to tears when I think of how disappointing much of Christendom must be to the Lord. Thank you, Lois.~In the last days of the Church as we have known it, we look around and see religion, tradition, rules and regulations. We hear this is the way it is done. This is how our services are run. We worship - 6 or 7 songs and we pray a little and then we have announcements and then we have a sermon. Then we are "sensitive" to see if we should have an altar call and we send forth the Ministry team and then we have coffee and go home. This is how we do church, every Sunday, 52 weeks a year. Little variation. What do you think might happen if we laid down all of our plans and prepared sermons and agendas, rules and regulations, and just cried out to the Lord and said, "Lord, if You don't show up, there isn't any point to being here. We are empty and thirsty and desperately needy. We are going to wait on You. We want You to lead the worship. We want you to teach us today. We yield and surrender and submit completely to Your will. We are willing to throw ourselves on the Cross and deny ourselves today and we are going to weep and mourn and wail between the porch and the altar until You come with the gift of repentance and change our hearts, because we have become Pharisees!! We can't do religion anymore. It is dead works, we don't notice anymore whether or not You show up. We would still go through the motions week after week, whether You came or not. Oh God, have mercy on us. We have become hypocrites. We have become lukewarm. We run around doing this and that in Your Name. Your Word says, '...Get away from Me, I never knew you.' Your Word says, '...I would that you would be hot or cold, but because you are lukewarm, I will spit you out of My mouth.' What a terrible thing to fall into the hands of an angry God. Let God be true and every man a liar. We can't do it! How arrogant to think that we can just go on 'doing church' week after week without waiting on the Lord and asking Him what's on His heart?! "Lord, what breaks Your heart? Lord, what are You angry about? Lord, what would You have our worship be? Do You just want us to worship You today, and nothing else? Do we sing songs about what God did or about ourselves? The Word says, 'These people honour Me with their lips, but their hearts are from Me." What would happen, I wonder, if we died to all of that stuff? What would happen if we just worshipped the Lord for who He is, right now, because He's worthy to be praised, honoured, worshipped and adored! What if we didn't preach anything UNLESS the Lord had something to say? What if we didn't take an offering at all? What if God just wanted to sovereignly come and minister to people Himself? Does He need us? Does He need church? Does He need tradition? Does He need religion? What would Jesus be like if He walked among us today? Would He be in church every Sunday? Would He like the services? I don't think so. I believe He would overturn stuff and say, " Woe to you Pharisees and call us Laodicea all over again. I believe Jesus would be out on the streets, walking around, meeting people, loving people, speaking into their lives. They would see His love and care for them, not because He fed them or provided something for them, or said they could come and get something Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 10:00am and 2:00 pm. I believe He would just love them. That would be enough. It would change their lives. Simple, honest, pure. Surrendered to the cross. Humble, open, no agenda. No religion, just loving people. The Lord calls today to His Church, His Body, chosen before the foundation of the world. Will You choose to embrace the Cross? Will you let go of the way you do church? For it has become religion. You are busy pointing the finger saying, "That church doesn't do things the way we do, so they're wrong and we're right. That brother or sister offended me last week. I didn't like the way the Pastor dressed last Sunday and He didn't quite preach the way I liked." Pharisees!! What makes you thing the Lord is pleased with you? What makes you think you are following Him? Are you? Why do you think you are? Did He ask you to "do church"? What would happen if He asked you not to? Would you obey Him and follow Him? Who is hungry? Who is thirsty for the truth? What is the truth? What does the Bible say? When was the last time you actually examined the Word and asked yourself if you understand what you just read and what it says, not what someone else tells you it says. What does it say? Do you hunger and thirst after fresh manna every day? Unless the Lord builds the house they labour in vain who build it. Has your labour been in vain? Did God ask you to have your sermons prepared 6 months in advance? What if He wants to do something different? What if He doesn't show up? Would you notice? Are you full of apathy and complacency and dead works? Will you embrace the cross or does it offend you? Will you let go of all the "Churchianity", the dead religion that you cling to week after week and offend the lost with day after day? Choose life. Choose the Cross. In order to have life, you have to die. You have to suffer. It will cost you everything. Are you willing? Are you hungry for something different? Do you care what the Lord wants, more than your tradition and religion. Do you care that His heart is breaking? The dead person is the only person that can be resurrected to life. The way of the cross is death. It offends. It is uncomfortable. It is not having everything all figured out. It involves letting go of everything. your church services, your finances, your friends, your family, your ideas, yourself, your ways, your rights. You may say, yes, Lord, I lay all of that down, of course I do, but the Lord would say to you: You go through the motions, you give me lip service. You say all these things, they are like a religious mantra that you chant to Me. I do not see you actually doing it and leaving it, staying in the grave, letting it go and letting it die and staying in the tomb, walking the way of the cross as I did and waiting for the Father to resurrect you as I did. I waited. I did not resurrect myself I waited until the 3rd day. Will you let it all go and say, not my will but thine be done? I'm waiting Lord. Change me, cleanse me, purify me. No matter what You need to do, no matter how long it takes, I'm laying it all down at the Cross and I'm going to wait until You resurrect me. I trust You, Lord. Your ways are not my ways. You came to a single mother, You were born in a manger. You chose to go to the lost, the poor, the prostitutes, the demon possessed, the tax collectors. You walked around and met people and loved them and they turned and followed You. Simple, pure, true, right. The way of the Cross. It wasn't easy. You were rebuked by the religious people of the day. They didn't believe You could be doing it right because it wasn't the way they had always done it! You weren't supposed to associate with those people! It just wasn't done. And the Sabbath! You can't heal people on the Sabbath! It's against our religion. You can't associate with a tax collector! They're not our kind! That prostitute over there, everyone knows what she does! It will mar your reputation if you're seen with her! If Jesus had come differently, do you think there would have been a Cross at all? If He fit into the religious peoples' mold and way of doing things, why would they have crucified Him? Do you think following Jesus and embracing the Cross today is any different than when He walked on this earth? He said, if they persecuted me they will persecute you. I have not come to bring unity but division. Wo to those who say peace, peace when there is no peace. He said come and follow me and I will make you fishers of men, but you have to walk the way of the Cross? It will cost you everything. Will you come? It will change you forever. Will you come? You will have to give up your life. Will you come? I will smash you on the Potter's wheel and fire you in the kiln. Will you come? Will you give all that you have for all that I Am. Will you embrace the Cross or does it offend you? Would you give everything you have away? Would you put your Isaac on the altar if I asked you? Would you lie on your side for 390 days if I asked you and then lie on your other side for another 390 days? Would you go to the jungle? Would you build an ark, even if everyone else said you're nuts? Would you take a sling to fight a Goliath if I asked you or would you say, sorry I'm not that stupid? Would you sell your house and give all the money from the sale to the beggar on the street if I asked you? Or would you say, That's not God, He wouldn't ask me that. Who are you to speak for me? My sheep hear my voice and the voice of a stranger they will not follow. Isn't is your own voices you hear? Isn't it your own ways you follow? Isn't it the plans of man that are foremost in your thoughts? Would you be an Abraham, a Moses, a Joshua, an Elijah, an Ezekiel, a Daniel, a Shadrach, Meschach or an Abednago, how about a Noah? Why do you still please men and not God? Why do you gather to yourselves and your itching ears only those that would say what you want to hear? Do I offend you? Did you think following Me would be comfortable? Easy? Without cost? Did you think it would make you popular? Accepted? Loved by everyone? How would you like to be a John the Baptist? Where are the ones who will pick up their cross and follow Me? Who is listening to the cry of My heart? Who will care for this dying world, so many angry, confused, lost and searching souls, longing for something real and true. Do you have what they long for or have you just been busy playing church while they are suffering and choosing to follow buddha or satan? They will follow someone, they are hurting and lost and want to be loved and want to belong yet you shut them out with your pious ways and your rules and regulations. They look for Me and they don't find Me with you. They see you as the same as they are. You don't have what you claim to have. It's empty. The Cross has been emptied of its power by the body I have come to save. You have a form of godliness, but it is Pharasaical religion. Seek Me! Seek Me until you find Me. Seek Me with your whole heart! Give all that you have for all that I AM. I Am the Living Water. I Am the Well that will never run dry. I Am Life. I Am the Way. I Am the Truth. Without Me you can do no good thing. You must abide in ME. I Am. Follow ME. The way is death. The Cross. The Grave - the Resurrection. I will do it. Will You choose to walk the way I walked? Though it cost you everything, will you come? (Lois Davis)
