My entire life has been dedicated to this cause. I’ve written much about it. Preached and taught about it. Have tried to live my life in an exemplary way.
And even now at my age my burden for the Church and churches continues to grow. I’m speaking to leaders more than I ever have before. I wrote 4 books in the past year, and just spontaneously wrote another in the last two days. Can you believe it? A fountain of glory and revelation has opened over my life. Day and night the urgency continues to increase in intensity.
Please read what I’ve written. A number of my books are for pastors and ministers. In fact, I can guarantee that you’d be a better vessel for the Lord if you read them all. Look them up on Amazon under my name or go to our Holy Fire Ministries website.
Pastors and local church elders and leaders, we have got to step it up!
WHAT IS A REAL CHRISTIAN?
At the dawn of the new millennium, well-known leaders of the Protestant, Evangelical world—including Jack Hayford, Tony Evans, Crawford Loritts, Henry Blackaby, Anne Graham Lotz, Kay Arthur, and Bill McCartney—produced a video that was distributed to 300,000 religious organizations in the United States. In it was a clear testimony of the church’s perilous moral and spiritual decline and desperate need for revival. Here are a few quotes from the video[1]:
•“America is a reflection of the condition of the people of God, the churches.”
•“In a recent research study, out of 66 lifestyle categories, Christians are not demonstrably different than non-Christians in ANY of the 66 categories.”
•“Christians have no credible moral voice in this nation.”
•“God looks into our churches and sees as much divorce in the people of God as He does in the world. God looks into our churches and sees as much abortion in the people of God as He does in the world. God looks into our churches and sees as much gambling in the people of God as He does in the world. And the surveys taken say the difference between the churches and the people of the world is hardly recognizable.”
•“For the first time in history, here in the western world, the divorce rate in the church is higher…HIGHER…than those that are not churched.”
•“80% of all young people raised in the church, faithfully attending church…80% of all of them, have left the church when they leave home.”
•“We have substituted programs for prayer, and scheduled activities for the Spirit’s leading, and orthodoxy for obedience, and CEO’s for pastors and shepherds.”
•“We are at a crossroads, and have got to make serious changes in the churches. We stand on the critical moment of judgment or revival. We must decide if we’ll obey.”
•“We are at a decisive moment. God must do a new thing in His Church.”
•“We have so entangled our lives with the affairs of this world, and we have made Christianity a show.”
Clearly, problems so massive will require equally massive changes. We believers in Jesus have to be willing to take a fresh look at foundational issues in light of God’s Word, with prayer and fasting, to determine just what is wrong and what we need to do to change.
These thoughts are intended to spark that kind of re-examination of a very foundational issue: What is a Christian? What does that term even mean, Biblically? If they don’t have a clear grasp of God’s perspective, the people of God will remain mixed with the world, with no clear standard to discern the difference and no way to help those who are holding to a false sense of security.
Can we look at this question together, as courageously and humbly as we know how, with God as our helper? Let’s examine, from God’s Word, what a Christian is not and what a Christian is.
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My elementary observations are: a Christian is someone who loves the Lord. And a disciple is someone who loves the Lord, and also loves his enemies. On these two definitions hang all the Law and the New Testament, in His blood.