So we will speak in tongues. So that fire will role down upon you. Through the rush of winds it will come down from Heaven. And you will go an proclaim what Jesus has done.
The Day of Pentecost. In a few sentences I have described this day, and in a few sentences I have probably lost most of you. Not in a sense that you do not understand, even though you cannot understand, but in a sense that we as the church do not understand. My question is, where did this day go? Why have we lost this sense of speaking in tongues so that every nation might understand what we are saying? Where is the fire that roles down upon us, giving us the will, the energy, and an unexplained sense of victory that will empower us to go? Have the winds of Heaven left our midst? Where has Jesus gone?
In an everyday church the answer certainly does not lie in the church. When we are focused on every day troubles, and whether the floor will get vacuumed or not, we have lost sight of the true work of the Holy Spirit.
Here is the issue, and here is my rant. Prayer is the source in which we interact with the Trinity. It is our dialogue with the most high, who through Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit so that God's name might be shared. People, no awdays, as Philip Yancey points out, pray with hints of what they want in their life as if they were putting together a Christmas list, with subtle hints of how other people should be acting. The Holy Spirit, if it were like a person, would begin to dry heave, then vomit up the prayers that these people are praying. The Holy Spirit would say this is not the Kingdom. It would say that Jesus meant for us so much more than what we are experiencing. Yet, this is what Christianity has become. Not what it is becoming, what it is, right here, right now.
If you, like myself, have experienced this form of Christianity, take heart. This isnt the first time people have became mislead and have wondered away from the promised land. The Pharisees and the Tax Collectors did the same, and Jesus turned tables because of it. But who is turning our tables? Where have we let Jesus desicrate our own desicrations? And when will we let the Holy Spirit flow down like a river of fire...through the rushing winds, and empower us to speak tongues. But if speaking in tongues makes you skeptical, think about it in the way of sharing with different cultures, those who speak in a different language. When has the Holy Spirit lead you to this place? Have we lost the Day of Pentecost so much so that we do not even know how to be a missional church?
I tell you this. The church, especially in American, has lost sight of the Kingdom of God. We are rolling in our own material needs and wants that the simple idea of having our daily bread is all too foriegn. Our relience on the Holy Spirit to reveal God's son Jesus Christ to the world is lost, and evangelism becomes a way of increasing our church's numbers. In doing so, we increase the ability to be paid. There it is again...money tables.
Holy Spirt come. God most high send us. Jesus Christ nuture us. For we are still a people chosen by you and lost in our own disdain.
No comments:
Post a Comment