As part of preparing to preach on Sunday, I’ve been re-reading ‘Passion for Jesus’ (by Mike Bickle, Kingsway, 1994). The following section struck a chord with me, as he puts into words something that I’ve been thinking about quite a lot recently…
Many of the problems in the body of Christ today are merely the result of a more fundamental problem at the very heart of the church. Our generation is paying a very heavy price for the decline of the intimate knowledge of God.
This woeful decline has brought about the secularizing of our churches and the decay of our inner lives, resulting in boredom, passivity and compromise. A.W. Tozer placed his finger squarely on the problem when he wrote:
"A condition has existed in the church for some years and is steadily growing worse. I refer to the loss of the concept of majesty from the popular religious mind. The church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshipping men… The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us."
Christianity in much of the world is not God-Centered. It's centered on needs, success, wholeness, or spiritual gifts. Although all these issues are important, they are not to be our primary focus, but rather the by-product of genuine spirituality. Emotional, spiritual, and physical blessings are the overflow from God-centered Christianity, not the fountainhead.
The church, having neglected her diligent pursuit of the intimate knowledge of God, has lost her joy and affection and the consciousness of His divine presence. She has lost her spirit of worship and her sense of awe and adoration.
I'll be preaching from Ephesians 3:14-21 on Sunday and I'm praying along with the apostle Paul that we would "grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and know this love that surpasses knowledge—that [we] may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." Amen to that!