A number of months ago I had someone come by my office to talk. They were telling me that on their morning prayer & walk, they kept hearing the word suicide being repeated over and over in their mind. After a few minutes of that the word changed and they started hearing the word homicide being repeated in their mind. (Now just to make things clear up front so that no jumps to conclusions, we new that this was a spiritual issue and not a natural or physical issue). We talked about about it a while and went on with life. I didn’t think about this this conversation for a while, but recently it has come back to mind, so I have been praying and seeking the Lord about it’s meaning and what I am suppose to do with it.
My thoughts are that this is about the The Church, with a big “C”. The Church is destroying itself from within. The Church as a whole, is so engaged in internal battles that we are committing either a spiritual suicide or spiritual homicide.
Lets look at those words and there meaning little closer:
Suicide: The killing of oneself.
Homicide: The killing of another.
The enemy has so deceived us, and convinced us to fight in the wrong battle - The battle of flesh and blood – A loose translation of this means that our battles are NOT against the human nature of another person or persons who are prone to sin just like we are.
I had someone tell me recently that they were against organized religion, i.e. the Church. Its not the Church, or organized religion that people have a problem with, its people that people have a problem with. Primarily because people don’t do it the way we think they should do it, so the person with the loudest voice or the most influence forces a change. When does it stop?
I recently read an article that is one example of the Church engaging in such unproductive, petty and meaningless battles, and it grieves me, and at the same time it makes me angry. The articles are from Our Rising Sound blog and John Mark McMillan’s blog. You see, John Mark wrote a song named “How He Loves”, and it is an amazing song. (If you will follow the link and watch the video it tells it all). Another artist recorded the song with John Marks permission. His name is David Crowder. The Church apparently created such a fuss about one of the lyrics the he was, for the most part forced to change it. the lyric is “heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss”. What?
(I think both of these artists are amazing and listen to them both, this is not about them, it is however an example of how the Church/Christians seem to respond).
There are 30,000 children that die every day of starvation!
There are 4,000 babies that are aborted everyday!
There are 3.5 million homeless people in America!
There are 37 million that live in poverty everyday in America!
Etc, Etc, Etc…….
And we (the Church, I.E. Christians) are arguing about song lyrics? Why are we so busy killing ourselves, or killing others?
Matt
That is awesome!!!!I wish everyone could see that. That should definitely be spoken by you on a Sunday or in front of a large group!!! That is TRUTH that needs to be spoken!!!
Thank you for this post. I have been feeling the same way for years. This is something most “organized” doesn’t much talk about. We have a far greater common goal than we do differences or we at least should. We attack each other so openly because it… sometimes I don’t know. Does it validate us more? Are we playing some holy one upper game? Or is it that we are so self absorbed with “our ministries”, rather than His Kingdom. Maybe any or all of them.
Peac <
Your LA Bro.