I received this message in my e-mail. It's from the step-son of a friend of mine who is away from home now attending a College in Maryland.
His message is right on, and I'd risk saying and endorsing as God's truth....
Here it is, be prepared to repent;
From: Justin Lanciault
Subject: Update
Date: Monday, December 8, 2008, 10:29 PM
Dear all,
First of all, I would like to say thank you for praying for me. It gives me great joy to know that you remember me in your prayers, even if it is just weekly, every little bit helps. The outreach into the plaza went well, one guy was really, seriously touched by the reality of Christ. It is to this end that I write to you...
Here are some questions that I've been asking God and He gave me a tough answer.
1. Why is there no power in the church?
2. Why are there are so many ministries that preach revival, that pray for revival,
that fast for revival, but yet, we have no revival, and we, in America, have not
had a true revival in 50-odd years?
3. Why does no one talk about sin anymore?
This is what God said, word for word: "SEEK YE FIRST THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN AND ALL OTHER THINGS SHALL BE ADDED UNTO YOU!" I was kinda struck by that statement, so I decided to seek God. In the light of that statement, He showed me that the problem of the American church is that nobody is seeking God! We got cute programs, get rich-quick schemes, we got set ways to pray (there's like 5 I know of the top of my head and they all claim to be right...), we got fasting that supposedly can move the hand of God, but the only problem with that is if you can move the hand of God, then He is not all-powerful, all-mighty, all-knowing, and last time I checked the bible He was.
So why is the church powerless? Why is there no revival? Why is sin never entioned anymore? Because we have no purity! We have lost sight of our first love and because of that we have fallen victim to Balaam's error. See, we have forgotten our first love.
Instead of reflecting upon God and his majesty and beauty, we follow men who have good ideas about God and Christianity. But that just the problem we follow men with good ideas! Think about this, why is any new ministry or denomination founded? Because the disagree with their "parent" and believe that they have a true revelation of the gospel. Ministries are founded by men and they are based on what a man thinks is godly enough. And we got men telling us how to encounter God, how to experience his presence. Um, if we truly, truly experienced the presence of God in any church, most of the church would be dead, because there is no sin in God, he can not stand sin, sin melts in his presence, therefore if God descended on a church most of the people would be dead. Why is it that "holy" is the only attribute of God repeated? Nowhere does it say God is love, love, love or merciful, merciful, merciful! It says repeatedly "holy, holy,holy is the the Lord"! See, we've bought into the love gospel that says for us to accept and tolerate everyone and just love them to Christ (Toronto and the likes), the "it's okay if your still sinning, brother, God still loves you". We sound more like hippies than followers of Christ!
Countless times in the Psalms does David express the fact that God is "angry with the wicked everyday"! But, you wanna know what's even scarier than this "free love gospel", is the fact that the world is preaching the same thing: tolerance and acceptance. Something is wrong when the world and the church are preaching the same gospel!!!! As John said, "to be a friend of the world is to be an enemy of Christ". Need I say more? So what's to be done?
It's time to seek the kingdom of God! It's time to begin to preach holiness and repentance of sins! And you say "Justin,won't that ruffle some feathers, won't that bring somepersecution?" To which I say, "DUH!"
"Through many sufferings and trials shall we enter the kingdom of heaven", as Paul put it. Paul understood the price he had to pay, he could have been the next high priest, but instead he decided to do something idiotic by the worlds view and declare the "heavenly vision" of "Christ crucified for sins".
WHY THE HECK DO YOU THINK THAT PAUL SAID THAT THE "WORLD WAS CRUCIFIED TO HIM"!!! Was it so we could slap it as a slogan on shirts and bumper stickers. No! Its because he realized that his life was forfeit as soon as he choose to follow Christ; Paul knew that by preaching truth he would disturb the "peace", and as a result he would be labeled as a dissenter, as a slanderer, as an outcast. That's why he counted the world as "rubbish" and as a "loss to him".
Why? Because the system of tolerance, and acceptance, and respect the status quo was just as prevalent back then as it is today. And by telling people that they were fundamentally evil and in need of a savior, made them look inward, which goes against human nature. Who wants to go through the trouble of changing themselves when they could just live a peaceful life away from the reality of sin. Sound familiar?
In closing, I want to note that when I preach I preach first and foremost to myself, but I felt that I couldn't sleep until I emailed this to every confessing believer that I knew. So examine yourself, line up the god you believe in and the God of scripture, the God with the unspeakable name whose name is holy, the God who is an all consuming fire, whose fire burns up the fires of hell, of lust, of pride, of selfishness, the God whose love compels His sons and daughters to reach out and put their neck on the line to bring one more into His kingdom.
Seek the kingdom!-Justin
P.S. Sorry that this is the longest letter ever, but ya...
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