This is a great excerpt from a book Joe just sent me. It is Paul Hattaway's "Back to Jerusalem." The book is especially meaningful to me, because in December I was able to participate in a conference call with one of the leaders of the "Back to Jerusalem" movement. God is doing amazing things in China!!! Keep praying!!!
"Many pastors fill their pulpits with fishing stories, and their congregation admires the fishing nets that hand on the wall of the church for display. The nets have been thoroughly cleaned. No effort has been spared to keep al dirt and impurity out of the church. The nets have been bleached so white that nobody would ever guess they had once been used for fishing! The strings are carefully arranged so that each square has the same size and shape. After all, 'God is a God of order.' The pastors love to boast about their nets, and even invite Christians from other churches to come and admire their nets with them."
"Every few years 'over-zealous' young believers come in and suggest that they should take the nets down from the wall and take them out on the lake to catch fish. The 'mature' members of the congregation explain that God is catching many fish throughout the world, and all is well. Their job is to live holy, peaceful lives and not be presumptuous. The new believers are assured that once they have followed the Lord for a few more years, they will mature and become just like the others. For now, they had best remain quiet in the pew and stop speaking out of turn."
"Week after week, year after year, Satan lulls individual believers, churches and whole denominations to sleep with his lies. The bleach that has removed all the stains and dirt from the nets also effectively disinfects the Christians until they will never consider becoming fishermen again."
("Back to Jerusalem", by Paul Hattaway, pp. 132-3)
6 comments:
From page 67:
--Sometimes foreign Christians visit the house chuches in China and make comments like, "This church in CHina is extraordinary!"
This is not true.
"Normal" Christianity for a believer is surely when we live according to the pattern of the church laid out in the word of God. The church in the Book of Acts did not have remarkable experiences and success, they had what should be normal lives and experiences for any church that claims to have been redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus! They were the standard for us to follow. Much of the church in the world today, including in China, is abnormal and unbiblical. May we all fall to our knees and seek the Lord's help to live out what he accepts as normal Christianity!--
Whew. How about that one.
Joe,
That's good stuff!!! But WAAAAAYYYYY too convicting. : )
What kind of things did you experience growing up?
Joe -- you mean there are supposed to be prophetesses speaking into people's lives and people being stoned and being freed from jails by angels and....
I'm with Kiki on this one. Good stuff, but waaaay to convicting.
Lu: yes.
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