The Covenant Life Blog – A Blog About Living With Jesus Today

IS THE CHURCH RELEVANT TODAY?

Friends, I have recently been listening to many you-tube presentations, TV programs, website presentations, and emails I have received from many Christian pastors and teachers and one thing I have seen is that we Christians communicate in our own special language I call Christianeze.   We speak in terms that Church goers speak with, but the main populations of our world would not normally understand.  Our cultures have not been raised in Christian church environments and they speak a totally different language than we do.  When we try to witness to a non-Christian we need to use terms they can understand, not our Christianeze terms.

Jesus has given each of us a commission to penetrate the culture the unsaved lives in and that culture is the kingdom of darkness.  Jesus never asked us to try to make converts, He told us to declare the gospel, or good news, and make disciples not converts.  The gospel, or good news, that Jesus declared and the early Church declared was “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand”.   Do you understand how to say that to the world you live today without coming across as a religious bigot?  Can we communicate to the unsaved without using our religious terms and messaging so that they can truly understand what you are talking about?  Are we actually relevant in our cultures today, or are we a religious relic that has no impact on our cultures?

I have a new training course that will be coming out soon that will help you in this matter.  Stay tuned for upcoming notices.

Doing Your Own Thing?

When we proclaim ourselves to be followers of Jesus and that He is our Lord and yet we live our lives choosing to do, say, or think whatever we want to do we are manifesting the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil —  SIN NATURE.

We have chosen to set OURSELVES up as the determiner of what is good or evil, right or wrong, beneficial to ME or not beneficial to Me. That is the essence of the SIN NATURE.  Refusing to allow God to be God in our lives.

We mostly don’t even ask the Lord what He would have us do in any given situation — we just do whatever WE WANT TO DO.

That, my friends, is the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Luke 6:46 — “And why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”

Matthew 7:21-23 — “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you, depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”

We are to live by faith: 2 Corinthians 5:17 –“for we walk by faith, not by sight”;

Romans 1:17 — “But the righteous man shall live by faith.”;

and we are to be led by the Spirit: Galatians 5:25 – “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”;

Romans 8:14 – “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.”

Jesus was our great example of how the person who is in relationship with God is to live. He lived, spoke, and acted in obedience to the will of the Father, not His own will.

John 5:19 — “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son does in like manner.”

John 5:30 – “I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of He who sent Me.”

John 8:28 – “I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father has taught Me.”

John 12:49 — “For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me commandment , what to say, and what to speak.

John 14:10 – “The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.”
To conclude: “BE IMITATORS OF GOD, AS BELOVED CHILDREN,” Ephesians 5:1.

Our Goal is to Know the Lord of the Book

The Bible is definitely a precious and wonderful gift from the Lord to His people, but the Bible was never meant to take the place of the Lord Himself, nor the Holy Spirit whom He sent to us. The Bible is a means, not an end. Knowing the Book of the Lord is not our goal; our goal is to know the Lord of the Book. The Bible is intended to be a tool the Holy Spirit uses to help reveal Jesus to us, not to take His place.