What is God Doing??

What is God Doing?? and What Can We Do??

The shaking the nation is experiencing is caused by the Church. Comfort and convenience cripple the Church. In the beginning we start ministries that are beyond our ability and we must trust God to do them. Then we find we can do ministry and times are good. We enjoy comfort in ministry. When new stretching challenges come, many of us stay in our comfort zone rather than again needing to trust God with the outcomes. Only He can do what He calls us to do so, we would need to step out in trust again. Comfort has seduced us and we enjoy the level of ministry we have and the praise of men. Many see us as successful, including us. Living on the ragged edge of God’s will is uncomfortable. Perhaps we will fail. Better to stay where we are. Yet we ask, what is God doing?

Comfortable Messages

Leaders preach comfortable messages to people who love comfort. They serve up what the people expect and thereby give deference to the idols of comfort and convenience. People may reject a leader that attempts to move them out of their comfort zone. Leaders depend on the support of those led. So many succumb to seduction to not upset the status quo.

Seduced by Comfort

The person in the pew is guilty in other ways. They like comfort’s sameness not only in worship, but at home. Once they faced many challenges of faith. They got tired. Then a period of rest came, and they loved the comfort of that rest. When God challenged them to more devotion, more ministry, more of that ragged edge of living in obedience, they developed a hearing problem. Rationalizing became easy because comfort lulled them to sleep. Often like Leaders like Sheep. Sheep choose churches that will let them learn and learn and learn, but apply little to their life. They can apply what will help them minister in the congregation. But the challenge to know God, listen to His voice and walk intimately with Him is absent or only occasionally mentioned. Now wonder we ask, what is God doing.

Normal Faith

We have lived so long with comfort that it feels normal. The book of acts and Church history tell us what is normal. The gospels portray normal. Scripture encourages us to take up our cross. The early churches experienced persecution, were eaten by lions, put in prison, tortured and rejected joyfully. They did not worship comfort. They worshipped God and left the securing of their future to Him.

The Shaking

Here is the sad reality. We are in a season of shaking in the USA. We brought this on ourselves by our love of comfort. When God said to pray for our nation, we did. But we did not seek His face, humble ourselves, or repent. Why? Because our comfortable Church culture never taught us how. So now we need to learn. Yet, only God can teach us. It takes His Spirit to convict us and open our spiritual eyes to our plight. We cannot see when we our idols blind us. God must help us understand the depth of bondage in our lives. We cannot know this for others, but we can pray for them. We must pray for them and for ourselves to see because we need our eyes opened to see what God is doing.

Comfort or Trust

Comfort does not require trust. We need not stretch to find God when trusting in our comfort. This place of comfort tells us we are pleasing to Him, but we are disconnected. We caused the disconnect, but deception keeps us from seeing it. We are sure we serve God, but we are really serving ourselves, which means we stand in God’s place. So we worship comfort and the god of self and believe ourselves justified in his sight.

How Deep Does this Go?

We find it easy to believe we get the depth of this problem when we do not. By seeking His face, we can see the truth and repent. This brings humility, and only then can God heal our land. We must as His people learn to seek His face. The way to seek His face is to ask Him to show us what in our lives grieves His heart. We must seek until He answers again and again, for we constantly need change. Then we can see what God is doing, but not until.

The Way to Trust

Jesus took up His cross because He listened to the Father. We are to take up ours as we listen to the Father. He invites us to a cross, not a feather bed or a recliner as we watch our 70 inch TV. Scripture invites us to a cross and not a comfortable ministry or convenient Church service.

The Bridegroom invites us to know Him if we seek Him. (Jere. 29:12-13) He will sustain us in the ministry He calls us to do. He will comfort us and hold us when life is difficult and He will live through us as we trust Him. Jesus does not leave us alone in this life of trust. The Trustworthy one holds us and rearranges our thinking so we think like Him. We need to begin this new journey with one step toward Him and His will, knowing that He is with us. Knowing we must repent and be reconciled. Then we can take the next step and the next, one step at a time.

Repent Church

The American Gospel-A Letter To A Post-Christian Church