Revival and the Heart

We do not need a change of Politicians, we do not need a change of Laws, we do not need a change of our Nation, we do not need a change of Morality. What we need is a change of hearts, for when the heart changes the Politicians change, the Laws change, the Nation changes, and the Morality changes.

Pray for change of hearts in our nation!

2 Chr 7:14
14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
(NIV)

Indifference

Holocaust survivor Eliezer “Elie” Wiesel once said, “The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy; it’s indifference. The opposite of life is not death; it’s indifference.”

In Luke 10:25-37 is the wonderful story of the Good Samaritan. It is the story that is being played out time and time again in our society in the last few decades. In this passage Jesus tells a story to a lawyer who was trying to justify his own existence of indifference. This lawyer was trying to look important to those in his sphere of influence by trying to cozy up to the great teacher. He was debating, or better yet discussing his way by showing how good his knowledge of the word of God was. Of course Jesus saw right through it and went right to the heart of the issue of indifference.

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?”"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" He answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind' ; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live." But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" 

Jesus said this man had answered correctly. Indeed, he gave the exact answer that Jesus later gave in response to the same question (Mt 22:36-40). This was very unusual among the Jewish religious leaders and shows that this lawyer had some great truths revealed to him by God. However, Lu 10:29 shows that he did not yield himself to this revelation but sought to justify his own actions before God.

Just as with this lawyer, pride causes many people to resist the truth of justification by faith in the grace of God (Eph 2:8, Lu 10:29). This lawyer loved himself and the public recognition his "holy acts" gave him. He was not willing to love God first and his fellow man ahead of himself. This was not a sincere question on the lawyer's part but rather an evasive question seeking to shun responsibility. This man was seeking to be justified in the sight of God through his actions. 

He knew he had not loved everyone as he loved himself, so he was trying to interpret the scripture (Le 19:18) in a way that would conform to his actions. He wanted to define "neighbor" as just his close friends whom he had treated well. Jesus, through this parable, however, defined a neighbor as any fellow human being that crosses our path and is in need of our assistance. It is always wrong to try to interpret God's Word in a way that will match our experiences. We should instead make our experiences match God's Word.

Jesus taught repentance and faith as the means of justification with God (Mt 4:17 with John 6:28-29, and Luke 18:9-14). This lawyer was seeking to be right with God on the basis of his own actions. Self-justification always produces excuses, while repentance and faith toward God produces obedience.

This question of "Who is my neighbor?" can be used by Satan to deceive us in more than one way. Not only can he deceive us into thinking we have fulfilled the command to "love thy neighbor as thyself" when we haven't, but he will also try to apply this command in a way that condemns those of us who are seeking to fulfill it by making us think we are not doing enough. We cannot meet the needs of every single person in the world. Jesus wasn't teaching that. This wounded man was directly in the path of these three men. The priest and the Levite had to walk around him. The priest and the Levite were indifferent to the needs of someone who they only saw. We see people and their needs all the time, but we see past them and do not really look. We become hard hearted because people don’t fit into the category of how we want to help. So we just pass on by seeing but not really seeing. Our hearts are closed off or just hard. Jesus was simply teaching that we should take advantage of the opportunities we have. The fact that we can't help everyone is no excuse not to help anyone. When we develop the excuse is when we are indifferent.

Indifference is the great sin of our time. In Revelation chapter three John the beloved apostle describes seven churches and the seventh one is the church of Laodicea, neither hot, nor cold, but lukewarm. Lukewarm is indifference. Jesus replies “You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. “

We need to see, indifference has blinded us to the needs of people around us. Indifference is the sign of the Laodicean church, the church of the last days.

The Church's Great Deception

Rev 2:4
4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.
(NIV)

I Jn 4:19
19 We love because he first loved us.
(NIV)




The great deception is that there is a sign out in front of the church that say’s “We are a Hospital” where Jesus is calling out "Come to me to all who are heavy laden and I will give you rest",
but inside the doors it changes into “A Courtroom”, where there is division, judgement, condemnation, and there is no rest.

It is not just about the words that we speak, but it is how we speak them and how we demonstrate those words. Talk is cheap, we can say all the words that we want to but if it does not align with our actions (as James 1:22 would put it) then we are just hearers only.

Jesus’ answer to the great commission is that they (the world) would know us by the love that we have for one another (John 13:35). We the church have lost that love because we lost that Christ first loved us. Grace being given to us is the hospital that we have all needed. Instead we have incorporated a courtroom and are to busy judging and pointing fingers.

Another way to say this is like gold being refined. Impure gold is added to a oven that produces 2000 degree temperatures and is melted. What happens is that gold is a very heavy metal and the impurities (dross) rise to the surface and the gold remains beneath. The gold is taken out of the oven and the dross is skimmed off. The gold then is put back into the oven over and over again till the dross is eliminated.

In relationship to the church when an individual is being put through the refining fire and that person comes out with dross on the surface the church is standing all around pointing fingers and judging. But what does not happen is that this same church can’t go deep enough to see the refined gold that lays below the surface to see that God is changing a life His way and time and not the Churches way and time. It is God’s job to refine, He is the husbandman (gardener – oven tender) who prunes, skims off the dross.

John 15:1-2
1 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.
2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
(NIV)

The reason for this is that church has lost its first love, lost that Christ loved them first despite their own sin and frailty. While they were still sinners Christ died for them. We are not commanded by God as a church to judge, we are commanded to love. We lost the ability to love because we lack the foresight on how much Christ loves us. We think that now that we have arrived it is okay to now judge and it’s not.


John 13:34-35
34 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
(NIV)

We wonder why the world is not interested in Church; it is because we do not love. Loving means laying down our lives for one another. It means looking out for other people’s interest even foregoing our own. The world would bust the Churches door down if they saw the real thing. Were to busy pointing out the dross to notice the hurting individuals that exist across the street, next to our desk, across the hallway, and even sitting in the pew next to us.

This is the great deception, trading a hospital for a courtroom.

Now more than ever our country and the world is desperate for an authentic witness of God's love expressed through Jesus Christ.

Indifference

Holocaust survivor Eliezer “Elie” Wiesel once said, “The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy; it’s indifference. The opposite of life is not death; it’s indifference.”

In Luke 10:25-37 is the wonderful story of the Good Samaritan. It is the story that is being played out time and time again in our society in the last few decades. In this passage Jesus tells a story to a lawyer who was trying to justify his own existence of indifference. This lawyer was trying to look important to those in his sphere of influence by trying to cozy up to the great teacher. He was debating, or better yet discussing his way by showing how good his knowledge of the word of God was. Of course Jesus saw right through it and went right to the heart of the issue of indifference.

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?”"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" He answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind' ; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live." But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

Jesus said this man had answered correctly. Indeed, he gave the exact answer that Jesus later gave in response to the same question (Mt 22:36-40). This was very unusual among the Jewish religious leaders and shows that this lawyer had some great truths revealed to him by God. However, Lu 10:29 shows that he did not yield himself to this revelation but sought to justify his own actions before God.

Just as with this lawyer, pride causes many people to resist the truth of justification by faith in the grace of God (Eph 2:8, Lu 10:29). This lawyer loved himself and the public recognition his "holy acts" gave him. He was not willing to love God first and his fellow man ahead of himself. This was not a sincere question on the lawyer's part but rather an evasive question seeking to shun responsibility. This man was seeking to be justified in the sight of God through his actions.

He knew he had not loved everyone as he loved himself, so he was trying to interpret the scripture (Le 19:18) in a way that would conform to his actions. He wanted to define "neighbor" as just his close friends whom he had treated well. Jesus, through this parable, however, defined a neighbor as any fellow human being that crosses our path and is in need of our assistance. It is always wrong to try to interpret God's Word in a way that will match our experiences. We should instead make our experiences match God's Word.

Jesus taught repentance and faith as the means of justification with God (Mt 4:17 with John 6:28-29, and Luke 18:9-14). This lawyer was seeking to be right with God on the basis of his own actions. Self-justification always produces excuses, while repentance and faith toward God produces obedience.

This question of "Who is my neighbor?" can be used by Satan to deceive us in more than one way. Not only can he deceive us into thinking we have fulfilled the command to "love thy neighbor as thyself" when we haven't, but he will also try to apply this command in a way that condemns those of us who are seeking to fulfill it by making us think we are not doing enough. We cannot meet the needs of every single person in the world. Jesus wasn't teaching that. This wounded man was directly in the path of these three men. The priest and the Levite had to walk around him. The priest and the Levite were indifferent to the needs of someone who they only saw. We see people and their needs all the time, but we see past them and do not really look. We become hard hearted because people don’t fit into the category of how we want to help. So we just pass on by seeing but not really seeing. Our hearts are closed off or just hard. Jesus was simply teaching that we should take advantage of the opportunities we have. The fact that we can't help everyone is no excuse not to help anyone. When we develop the excuse is when we are indifferent.

Indifference is the great sin of our time. In Revelation chapter three John the beloved apostle describes seven churches and the seventh one is the church of Laodicea, neither hot, nor cold, but lukewarm. Lukewarm is indifference. Jesus replies “You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. “

We need to see, indifference has blinded us to the needs of people around us. Indifference is the sign of the Laodicean church, the church of the last days.