Lukewarm

It's funny, almost bizarre, sometimes, the way God works.

Here is the order of events that occurred to me this evening:

1) I got on Facebook because I was bored.

2) On Facebook I saw a link to an article about why, "scientifically," one should date someone who reads. I read the article and it made me want to read a book.

3) I picked up my book I've been working my way through called "Tortured for Christ" by Richard Wurmbrand. It is a quick and intellectually easy read, but psychologically and spiritually very difficult and convicting. I am only about 2/3 through.

4) After deciding it was time for bed, I lied there reflecting in prayer about what I had just read. Most of it was describing how the horrors of Communism goes unnoticed and ignored by the lukewarm Church in the West, while zealous Christians give their lives for their Savior in Communist nations.

5) I prayed that I would be enabled do something. I inadvertently started "writing" in my head, so here I am, blogging away half an hour before midnight. I didn't want to lose my words by waiting until tomorrow.


I wish I could explain why I am so troubled, but only Richard Wurmbrand and the Holy Spirit can move in the minds and hearts (respectively) of people in this particular way, I think.

He's right. The "civilized" West is a decaying world. The United States houses a lukewarm church. I have seen evidence of this, as well as evidence to the contrary. I have lived barely more than 20 years, barely leaving my home country or even my home state, but here is what I have seen.

I have seen my parents teaching their children how to have a relationship with Christ from the earliest age. I have seen those same parents pray and read the Bible with their children as well as support their mission work.

I have seen the church I grew up in, consisting mostly of elderly folks, pray and study diligently, treating each other with kindness, praying with one another, helping each other through tough times, send out missionaries, and live out their faith quietly in their respective lives.

I have seen the first church I attended regularly in college slip into a habit of refusing to "convert" people at the risk of being un-accepting, downplaying the Gospel, discussing theology and philosophy over beer rather than concerning ourselves with the sins of its members. It was a museum of culture, art, and theology, as well as vaguely spiritual souls. This same church, however, feeds the homeless and shows love to all who walk through its doors. I love this church but they are guilty of what St. Francis considered a virtue: "Speak the Gospel at all times. When necessary, use words." Apparently it is not often necessary to speak the Gospel with words.

I have attended another church where the Gospel is boldly proclaimed not on a weekly basis, but on a daily one, where the number of members has skyrocketed from a few to over a thousand in only five years because of its potency and love for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. No church is without its flaws but I do not think this church would need to change much even if America became a Communist nation. The Gospel would be proclaimed there all the more loudly.

I have worked at a Christian summer camp that (perhaps unknowingly) hired atheists and universalists, people living sinful, double lives, to teach Bible study to children. At this same camp I have found people madly in love with Jesus and with a great passion for his little children to know him.

I have sat through worship services, bored and angry that I got the impression that no true worshiping was happening at all.

I have sat through other worship services where I wept and sang with all my heart, or danced with joy, along with many others.

I have never been anyplace where my Christian faith was illegal, yet I have often failed to share the Gospel when I should have.

I have led one or two people to Christ almost inadvertently, but have wished and tried and prayed more than anything that others would come to know Christ and yet have been unsuccessful.

I have failed to read my Bible daily or to pray for the persecuted.

Instead, I concern myself with trite issues such as daydreaming about whom I might someday marry, or wondering when I will do my laundry, or checking Facebook.

Although I have never literally renounced my Jesus, I have renounced him by remaining silent many, many times.


And what shall I do? How will I end my lukewarm attitude and the lukewarm attitude of the American church? How will I care for the martyrs of this world? How will I myself by a martyr, even if I stay in my own country? How will I learn to love my neighbors around the world (and actually do it)?

I ask that you ask these same questions along with me. If you do not feel convicted (you very well may not, as I am pretty much just ranting until my cranial juices run out for the night), I would highly encourage you to "Tortured for Christ."


God bless.