State Of The American Church

Revelation 3:20 “Look! I stand at the door and knock . If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.”

My thoughts: I sat at a church door last night and thought about the state the American church is in. As the young evangelist Isaiah Saldivar says, this verse is not about God knocking on our hearts to see if we will let Him in, but is about God knocking on the church door of the lukewarm, sleeping congregation in Laodicea. He wanted to know if they would quit leaving Him out of the place He is supposed to inhabit. I wonder what would happen if every church became a place where God attends. What if we stopped putting Him in a box and quit telling Him what He can and cannot do? What if we stopped trying to put a pacifier in His mouth as if He is a baby in a manger? We pray that God wouldn’t say anything too harsh that may offend us or cause us to get up off of our lazy chairs. Please don’t get me wrong,  I know there are churches that open their doors up to Jesus and allow Him to have His way. However, I also know there are many churches that would rather feed off a message of false grace and live in compromise. When God moves, it doesn’t always look put together and organized. He doesn’t operate with our opinions at mind. The Greek word, deipneó, meaning to eat or dine is used in this verse. When Jesus says He wants to share a meal together as friends, He isn’t talking in a literal sense, but in a spiritual sense meaning He wants us to share in His “most intimate and blissful contact” (Thayer’s Greek Lexicon). We will never know the intimacy God wants to share with us if we don’t welcome the fullness of who He is. As a church, let us cut ourselves off from the barrenness of dead religion. If we don’t, God will cut us off from Himself and throw us into the fire. (John 15:2,6)