Looking Back?

​                  “You can’t go back to the music of yesterday. Yesterday’s drumbeat ain’t gonna help us now…”
                These are the words from the song from Ken Medema the blind singer musician who God has used in many ways. I was thinking this morning about how if the church is to be successful in this “new” time,  that we can’t go back to the drumbeat of yesterday.
                We have to look to God for a new move of the Holy Spirit and be open to his leading in our churches and move as God has ordained for us to move as in the book of acts. People are looking for something real. People are looking for something to take their fear away about the future. People are looking for the reality of God ‘s power, not just dead religious services even though the services may seem live with a rock band, clapping, flashing lights etc.
                People need to learn how to overcome in their lives and to take authority over fear and over all of the things that are going on in our country. Things are not the same as they were two years ago. In some ways it’s been a terrible two years, and, in some ways, I thank God that things aren’t the same because God wants to do a new thing with his people. God also  wants to reach more people.  He wants to bring many into His kingdom and it won’t happen if we go back to the same dull boring routine that we had before, sing a song, clap your hands,  sing a song, clap your hands,  sing a song, clap your hands and then a sermon about how to be prosperous and how to live supposedly within our society not considering that we are not of our society but we are as the Bible says,  a royal priesthood and  a peculiar people.
                We are called of God to be the kingdom of God in this world and not to be part of the secular society that we see around us. A society which does not consider human life to be important except people’s own lives. God does not want his people to go around masked and hidden but he wants his people to share the Word of God and to be open.  He wants His glory to be shown through our faces and not behind masks. The Lord spoke to me some time ago and told me to be bold as a lion. I have not always done that and now I regret that, but I’m ready to do it now. People may not want to hear what I have to say but there are many who do want to hear the truth. People are getting fed up with what the government is trying to tell us to do and that it’s not working. People are getting fed up with being told by the government’s tyrannical mandates to shut us down in our lives and in our worship. The church is essential more so than any other human organization because it is the church.  It is  those who are blood bought believers in Jesus Christ, who will bring help to others in the world who have no hope. We have the only true hope that will change people’s lives and make them what God has ordained them to be and bring purpose to their lives that they have not known before. We alone have the message of Jesus Christ that will transform people as the Word of God has said.
                If we are in Christ we are a new creature, old things are passed away and behold all things are become new. We need not fear a pandemic, we need not fear sickness, we need not fear those things that the government tells us we need to fear. "Greater is he that is in us then he that is in the world." that is what God ‘s word says that we need to know here and now. God‘s word is final authority and those who don’t believe the Bible have no hope but those do believe the Word of God,  the bible,  have the hope that God puts in our hearts that we know that he’s real and that we know that He has a purpose for our life and that we know he will keep us until that day where we go to be with him and live with him for eternity.
                There is a heaven and there is a hell. Hell has not been created for people and we need to realize that. Hell is eternal separation from God and that is one of the last things that we should want for our life, because God is love and hell is separation from the love of God. It is not by God‘s choice but by our own choice. We need to choose, and we need to share the good news that God has given us through Jesus Christ that salvation is in Him.   Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father but by me”.   Jesus proved what He said by rising from the dead in which hundreds of people saw him after he rose from the dead before he ascended into heaven.  No other religion has a savior who actually rose from the dead in truth.  Over five hundred people saw him at the same time after the resurrection.  But when he ascended into heaven he sent his spirit, the holy spirit to dwell with us and in us and by the Holy Spirit we know that He is real. He is more real than the air that we breathe. Open your heart to Him today and pastors open your church to him for he is the only hope that we have in these days. 
We must have churches who are not afraid of the power of God and do not relegate the Spirit of God to the back room or small group. People need to see the reality of God’s power with signs, miracles and wonders following as He promised.  People do not want dead religion in these days but the reality of God. They will seek other supernatural means if they do not see the power of God in us.
 
Lord, show Yourself strong on our behalf for your glory!  Amen