by Jerry Hillenburg
Churches have become worldly, fleshly, carnal, Spiritless places…where Christians have become cold, callus, indifferent, and passionless about the things of God. Oh, they can find tons of things to keep them coming to the church building: Duty, guilt, fear, or a feeling of well being when they do. They can even claim that they are coming “For the Children” but, they have little use for true Biblical Christianity. It is far too confrontational and unwanted in our current anti-christian, anti-Bible culture.
Something is wrong in our Churches, something is wrong in our Church, something must take place. The people of God must return to the place of passionate surrender, we must return to the moving of the Holy Spirit upon our lives and our total submission to that movement…that is called Revival!
Vance Havner put it best when he said “We need a heart warming…The early Christians did not need a shot in the arm every Sunday to keep them going. They knew Jesus and they upset the world, worried the devil, and gave wicked rulers insomnia, and started something the jails could not lock up, fire could not burn, water couldn’t drown, swords couldn’t kill.
You may belittle experience and speak of the dangers of emotion, but we are suffering today from a species of Christianity as dry as dust, as cold as ice, as pale as a corpse, and as dead as King Tut. We are suffering, not from a lack of correct heads, but of consumed hearts.”
We, Brothers and Sisters, need our hearts stirred again to Spiritual life…to have again the Breath of God, in the person of the Holy Ghost, blow upon our hearts and lives, stirring us to Spiritual life once more! There is an old Gospel Hymn that says it like this:
“Breathe on me, Breath of God,
Fill me with life anew.
That I may love what You do love,
And do what You would do.
Breathe on me, Breath of God,
Until my heart is pure.
Until with You I am one will,
To do and to endure.
Breathe on me, Breath of God,
Till I am wholly Thine.
Till all this earthly part of me,
Glows with Your fire divine.”
We need the glowing of that “Divine Fire” in our hearts and lives…right now…today! We need to be sensitive to the Spirit’s movement, we need to be alert to the Spirit’s call, we need to be ready for the Spirit’s power, and we need to be patient for the Spirit’s presence to expand in our lives.
We must come to this awakening with hearts full of desire, but also with the cognizant awareness, that we fall short of His glory, and we must begin the process of emptying out the world and allowing the Spirit to fill in those carnal places in our heart. He wants to…now we must let Him.
We need to get out of the world’s rut and into the Spirt’s presence and power….I want to; don’t you?
by Jerry Hillenburg
Be careful my friends . Drop the rocks for a minute. One of our greatest strengths can also be our greatest weakness . Filtering every word with the Word is excellent. But check your motives before opening the mouth. One may find them self offended or wanting to always be seen as wise…which are both pride.
I agree sermons should largely be God speaking thru scripture but in this case the brother was trying to exhort his brothers …if his words are biblical in in wisdom, principle, and passion can we not carefully validate..then humbly repent if applicable.
This is why I have little time for any man made affiliation for…yes I agree..the churches are dead. But try to exhort a leader and see pride rear up like a demon and snatch the seed lest their weakness be exposed .
(Was the deadness comment too harsh? Find me a church that prays effectually fervently with tears night and day and is evidenced by people displaying the fruit of the Spirit, hating their sin, passionately sharing Jesus just because they can’t help it, not because church has visitation night.
Spirit and Truth. Walk by the Spirit and walk by faith. Teach it. Do it. Lead them into it.
Or resign and get an honest job. Just MAYBE someone will fill our shoes that will.
Be blessed brothers. I too am trying to become what I exhort
Shalom,
Thanks for what you say. I agree exhorting in love is the right way.
However, can one exhort where there is pretendance of life but it is really dead in ritulistic and binding rules and regulations? NO of course not. The fire is out due to ones own state.
So what should happen?
Take out the ashes and start again in truth of the only true way and that my friend is from judaistic beliefs in the only true G-d/Yahoshua/and Shekinah the Holy Spirit of my G-d and Saviour.
REPENT and come back home.
I could go on here but why dont you invite me to speak as a messianic Jew or are you afraid of what i, like my Friend and Brother would say like he did in the temple, dont be please.
Shalom Dr Cromwell