Grace For The Journey

  Never before in the history of the Christian faith have we seen so many churches working so hard . . .

To fit in with the surrounding culture,

Rather than stand out for Christ.

Not to be outdone by the culture, we’ve entered into competition with it, and by the looks of the scoreboard, we are losing.  The divorce rates are the same both in and out of the church.  Materialism has a choke hold on the Christian as much as it does on the culture.

The culture is changing the church.

We have been entrusted with the eternal

And

We have turned it into entertainment.

Our seeker-sensitive services entertain the senses but do not satisfy the soul.

Preaching to the felt needs of the “customers” we have wooed into the pews, we have watered down the whole counsel of God to the exclusion of sin, judgment, holiness, and the wrath of Almighty God.  More than twenty-five years ago, Francis Schaeffer rightly warned,

“The evangelical church has accommodated itself to the world around it.”

In doing so, we have become more “market-driven” than Master-directed.

The Christian community is being shaped more by Hollywood than by God’s Holy Word.  We hear more and more Christians saying . . .

“God’s desire for me is to be happy,”

Rather than

“God’s desire for me is to be obedient and holy.”

Charles Spurgeon, the great Baptist minister of the Tabernacle Metropolitan Pulpit in London, aptly observed, “He who marries today’s fashion is tomorrow’s widow.”

Today’s church desperately needs countercultural Christians who refuse to be seduced, swerved, and shaped by Hollywood.  Someone has rightly said, “Faithfulness to Christ requires foreignness to the world’s trendy diversions.”  To be sure, there is a lot this world has to offer in the way of diversions – which are some of Satan’s sharpest weapons.

Let me ask you:

Is the character of your life being shaped more by Hollywood or God’s Holy Word?

The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 2:12, “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.”

We live in this world, but we are not to live like this world

Because we have received the Spirit of Christ.

We are to make an eternal difference in this world

Because we have been made eternally different.

The world doesn’t need more of this world; it needs more of the next!

No one will understand the things freely given us through the “teaching” of Hollywood, but only through the Holy Word of God – both professed and practiced by the people of God.  That is the teaching that will give this world desperately needs.

This is God Word … This is Grace for your Journey

… Rest And Rejoice In The Wonderful Truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”