Last night the Holy Spirit of God was moving freely in the service. It was so good to see the alters filled and hear testimony after testimony, along with anointed singing. We rejoiced in the birth of one of our young couple's little girl, and also in the birth of a new child of GOD. Yes, it was a very good day.
There is a young man in the mission and his entire church from Tennessee loaded a bus and drove down to be with him in the service last night. They came and got right in on the service as if they'd been members of our church all along. It was a blessing!
Their music director testified and something he said kind of popped out at me and I haven't been able to get it off my mind. He said the church he and his family had left were moving in the contemporary direction. That they left a lot of times feeling hungry for something more powerful.
When he said that, the first thing that crossed my mind is when I'm hungry but in a hurry or don't want to take the time to prepare something good for myself, I grab the first thing I see. A handful of chips, a little Debbie cake, a candy bar.
These things won't fill us up. They give us a temporary satisfaction, along with empty calories. We need good calories throughout the day to give us energy and keep us going. So why not just take the time and eat the right foods when our body is telling us we need to eat? Chips and a Debbie cake or a candy bar are ok from time to time. But when our body needs nourishment, we need to feed it the right foods.
Just like our physical body needs the right foods, our spiritual body does too.
Jesus said in John 6:35, "...I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."
In order to feed our spiritual body, we need to eat from the Bread of Life. There are many things we can nit-pick over in churches. Your church may do things differently from my church. And that's fine. That's why you go to your church and I go to mine. :) But I do believe that the modern church has slipped away from true worship and are making a quick fix to feeding the spiritual, leading to empty power in the Saints of God.
Most modern churches want to spend forty-five minutes in a praise and worship singing where they sing the same words over and over and over and over. Then spend five minutes reading a passage from the Bible. There's no real meat in the message or songs. Something about loving your neighbor and being kind to one another. Then it's over. Everyone goes home to do their own thing and they leave with a temporary satisfaction that will only carry them through part of the day. Then they starve the rest of the week.
I realize that's a very run-down description, but I think you know what I'm referring to. Like I said, not every church is like mine. Not every church is like yours. It's not about my church or your church. It's about being in a church where people are fed empty power.
John 4:24 says, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." There must be a balance in the service. You can be in a service where there is a lot of spirit, but little or no truth. And you can be in a service where there is a lot of truth, but little or no spirit. I've been in both. And let me tell ya, it leaves you hungering and thirsting for the Power of God.
It's no secret I love my church. I'm thankful for a man of God that allows the Holy Spirit to direct the service. We have an unspoken order of service. A way things are kind of laid out. But there is no official order of service, written in a bulletin and handed out. If we did that, it would be a waste of paper, because most of the time, our services NEVER go the way our Pastor or the congregation thinks it will. We don't have a calendar saying who is singing each service through the month. Our choir director doesn't make a list of songs the choir will sing over the next several weeks. And that's because the Holy Spirit is allowed to be the director and orchestrator of the service. It's good to go and be fed in spirit and in truth. It leaves you feeling Spiritually fit, spiritually strong, spiritually encouraged, and spiritually powerful.
The more we get of empty calories, the less we get of the nourishment we truly need. We begin to lean toward the convenience and instant gratification of meeting a need that will never be met until we give our body the right stuff!
We need the meat of the WORD and the BREAD OF LIFE to fill us UP with HOLY GHOST POWER!
Are you hungry?
The Master says, "...Come and dine..."
