We've LOST CHRISTIANITY

We've LOST CHRISTIANITY
-by Andrew Strom.

Despite the thousands in our megachurches today, soaking up
the warm entertainment offered to them every week, I want to put
it to you that we have lost Christianity. Despite the Christian books
now found in every Walmart, and the "crossover" of Christian
artists into the mainstream, and our Christian mega-stores and
CD's and DVD's and Study-Bibles, I want to put it to you that we
have lost Christianity.

Despite our lavish Cathedrals in the suburbs ('Charismatic or
not) with their pastel hues and comfortable pews, their projector
screens and $30,000 sound systems, I want to put it to you that
we have utterly lost Christianity.

We left it behind somewhere when we shifted our churches from
the inner city into the "comfortable" suburbs. We left it behind when
we stopped welcoming the bums off the street into our meetings
and started welcoming only the "respectable" people. We left it
behind when we stopped preaching "take up your cross" and
turned the gospel into a success formula - 'Seven Steps to your
Best Life Now.'

Somewhere in our comfortable suburban streetscape with its
manicured lawns we lost the real thing. Somehow in our concern
for "property values" and a better 'dental plan' we left it behind.
But that is not the worst part of it. The worst part is that we don't
know how to get it back again. Or perhaps we don't really WANT
to get it back again. The cost simply doesn't bear thinking about,
does it? And so, as we drive around in our nice shiny cars with
our groovy plastic toys, and attend "church" as we know it twice a
week for 2 hours;- As we live a life that is about as unlike Jesus
as you can get, a life of comfort and coddling undreamt of by
billions around the world;- a lifestyle in the top 10% of the earth
today (-in debt up to our eyeballs all the while) - the fact is that
we don't really CARE that we have lost original Christianity, do
we? We are too busy, man. Don't bother us with that kind of talk.

It will all be OK, the preacher tells us. We will all make it to
heaven in the end. We are all "decent" people here. We have
"prayed the little prayer". We have 'given our heart to the Lord'.

Oh yes. We will all make it, won't we? We are all good suburban
church-going folks here.

But what is this? What is that thundering voice I hear? "DEPART
FROM ME." 'But LORD... But LORD....'

"I said - 'DEPART FROM ME'. Don't call me Lord. You never truly
lived like I was your Lord and you know it. For I was hungry and
you gave me no food; I was thirsty and you gave me no drink; I
was a stranger and you did not take me in; naked, and you did
not clothe me; sick and in prison, and you did not visit me...."

What is the essence of true Christianity that we have lost, my
friends? It is simply described by James as follows- "Pure
religion and undefiled is this: To visit the fatherless and widows
in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."
(Ja 1:27). Amen!

Send feedback to- prophetic@revivalschool.com

God bless you all.

Andrew Strom.