IF ONLY - GOD!

I remember thinking when I was a boy in church, “if only everybody could hear a good sermon, then everybody would get saved!” But “good” preachers are preaching "good sermons" everywhere; you can see them on TV, hear them on radio and there’s a church on nearly every street corner, but sin still abounds and the world keeps getting darker all the time.

I remember as a teenager going to a concert of Christian rockers and thinking, if only we could get this music out to the world; get more than 25 people to a concert, then everybody would have to get saved the world couldn’t resist it!" And the “Christian music industry grew and went world-wide and became a multi-million dollar business and the world did hear and yet sin still abounds and the world keeps getting darker.

“If only The Beatles or Dylan would get saved, then the whole world would listen!” or so I thought; Bob did get saved and the man dubbed “the voice of his generation” was silenced as live audiences jeered him and radio stations refused to play his “Christian” songs and sin abounded and the world kept getting darker.

Christian Radio, Christian Television, Christian Books and Christian Bookstores filled with music and books and trinkets became another over-priced industry, and we thought surely “just getting the Good News out to the masses, people will hear and get saved and some did, but in large we have done more damage than good to the cause of Christ by creating an irrelevant subculture that pushes those who have yet to meet Christ yet further away and sin still abounds and the world keeps getting darker.

“The answer is ‘Worship’! If we say, “Come as you are”, make the sermons relevant and the music contemporary and sinners comfortable, then they will come and hear and be saved”, and some have come, but when has being comfortable in sin ever compelled a man to repentance? So sin still abounds and the world keeps getting darker.

After thirty years of being in the “Healing Movement”, the “Born Again Movement”, the “Jesus Movement”, he “Charismatic Movement”, the “Discipleship Movement”, the “Worship Movement” with a helping of the “Inner Healing", 'Prosperity", and the' Toronto Movements" on the side, I decided to just love God and people and let God have all the rest.

At times, this too has seemed to fail. I have been abused in my life, as a young man I was raped; but I have never been as abused as I have been abused, by the “church “and by “Christians”. The rape was nothing compared to the spiritual and emotional rape that has been perpetrated on me by more than one “Pastor”. Most of us come from dysfunctional families, but until you survive a spiritually abusive church, you have no idea what dysfunction means.

We say, “if we can only love them enough, then they will no longer hurt and they will love us in return and we can keep sin at bay and turn back the darkness", yet Jesus willingly stretched out His arms and allowed men he loved to crucify Him; fully aware that even the ultimate act of love would not be received by all.

Church family, movements of men come and go with various degrees of success or failure, but the greatest commandment is that we love God with all that we are and love others as much as we love ourselves and in spite of our best and often misguided efforts, the efforts of man will never save the world; sin still abounds and the world continues to grow keeps darker and it will until the One who is Love, Life and light makes Himself known.