“Provoking Christian Insights” series

Friends: Today we begin a new series inspired by the reality that “ we might get up this morning, turn on our computers, and get a cup of coffee one moment, and in the next, be face to face with our maker due to the circumstances surrounding us.”

Part 1

“Urgency since 9-11.”
Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of evangelist Billy Graham and Ruth Graham said she felt a new sense of urgency in her work since September 11. “One moment those men and women were booting up their computers or grabbing their first cup of coffee and the next moment they were face-to-face with God.

“I’m not telling anybody they have to receive Christ as Savior or they have to believe. I just want them to know what their options are, and then let them make a choice,” said Anne Graham Lotz.

That was five years ago and a lot has happened since. The cry of Anne Graham’s heart is still ‘Just give me Jesus”

I want you to pay particular attention to what Lotz said that day five years ago in Cleveland.

“Many church-going Americans are cultural Christians, growing up going to church and continuing to go as adults only out of habit or because they want to expose their kids to religion. But they know nothing about knowing Jesus personally and growing in their relationship with God,” Lots said in her Southern drawl, reported in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Latter day Christians

This past Sunday night I was sitting in on a fast paced one-hour class on the Third Chapter of Revelation and Pastor Duane Lee was comparing the last two churches of the seven in Asia Minor (southeastern modern Turkey), the church of Philadelphia and the church of Laodicea. He was comparing the church of Laodicea to the churches and times of today.

Jesus told the Laodiceans, “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot. I will vomit you out of My mouth.”

It is often easier to reach the cold unbeliever than to stir the lukewarm Christian who has a form of religion but no real commitment or power. Christ will judge the lukewarm if they do not repent. Interesting, the mineral springs of Laodicea produced hot water for therapy, cold water for refreshment, and lukewarm water that would make a person very sick.

Pastor Lee’s concern for today’s church was lack of commitment. He noted that some churches, in an effort to please everybody, had drifted away from their true love … Jesus. Members whose first love is Christ began to look for other places to worship, places where God was in the house. So it still is today.

Lee went on to explain that churches are just buildings. Christ comes in with the believers.

 I know a lot of men who go to church yet, still take God’s name in vain. They talk about church as something mechanical and seldom reference love for Jesus. I know women who attend church religiously but don’t seem to have a real worship presence about them. They appear to go to church and go through the motions as they have for many years. Their children have drifted away from church attendance years ago, or attend infrequently out of duty more than passion or desire.

Is this happening around you? Is God in your church house?

The Lotz visit to Cleveland was the result of 20 women coming together to pray for revival. Soon women from 50 churches came together of the Hudson Community Chapel every Friday morning for more than a year to pray for Cleveland’s revival. Because Lotz was a women she asked that this event be just for women. She hardly expected 15 to 20,000 women. The Hudson Community Chapel considered it unbiblical for a woman to preach or teach the Bible to men. Women preaching or teaching other women was not an issue, the Plain Dealer reported. The event was called “Just Give Me Jesus, Ohio,” and held at the Gund Arena.

The prayer warriors for revival shared their vision with Gail Reese who said, “it gripped my heart, never having sat so close to other women who were praying the same thing God told me to pray,” I thought, ‘Lord this is your next step isn’t it?’ recalled Reese.

Delphine Allen of the prayer committee said, “Revival starts personally when God holds a mirror up and you realize your relationship with Him is not what it should be.” More than 36,000 women would show up to listen and pray.

Fast Forward Five Years To Today

I can’t get the “Lukewarm thing” out of my head.  In about 30 places in the Bible Jesus references that “You are either for me or against me.” There is no room for lukewarm. The people in the church of Laodicea were obviously lukewarm and our churches of today in many instances are compared to the church of Laodicea. Ouch!

Tonight I heard a story of a single Evangelist living in an apartment complex. When the repairman went to fix the plumbing, thinking no one was home, to his amazement found a woman sleeping in the preachers’ bed. A single lady minister living in the same complex had a man who was not on the lease living with her. “What’s this world coming to?” my wife asked.

My heart sank as I thought of all the instances that I had experienced of people playing church. I thought, “Can I be one of those?” There are times I went into church not prayed up or stayed up. I was more concerned with me than with winning souls, or worshipping God.

Then I thought of those women five years ago praying for revival. It was about that time that I was also praying for revival when a man in the church asked me if I thought that revival was going to come to the church. For some reason, at that instant, I felt I needed to tell him that revival probably wouldn’t come to that church unless things changed. I didn’t go on to explain. I think that he thought the less of me for it.

In the church at that time were some control issues. Yes, we prayed for revival. Yes, we wanted revival to come until there was no room to sit another person. But, if revival had to come on our terms, I didn’t think it would happen. The entire church including the pastor, worship leader and everyone there had to feel what

Gail Reese was feeling in Cleveland. We couldn’t “control” revival into being. My honest answer would get me into trouble and cause me to do what Pastor Lee would say would happen five years later. I would seek revival elsewhere with no control issues. Everything would be held up to God’s mirror and what was reflected would be as it should be.

Church has to be God’s way

We can’t have it our way. We can’t worship just when we don’t have anything else to do. We can’t leave the work of the church to a few and expect miracles to happen when we are barely involved. We can’t bring people into the church and just turn them loose.

“Once a baby is born he has to be taught how to walk, speak, how to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ Just because he’s born doesn’t mean he’s set for life. He has to be trained and taught,” Anne Graham Lotz told the people of the Cleveland revival.

If you feel that you may be in need of spending a little more time in prayer, in church, on your knees, with Christ, I submit to you the following from Revelation 3: 19-22;

“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come to him and dine with him, and he with Me.

“To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches,” New King James Version.

INSPIRATION: “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him my new name,” Revelation 3:12.

Write: croneis@earthlink.net