Friday, April 25, 2008

unbelief part 1

One of my favorite preachers is a lady by the name of Beth Moore. You've probably heard of her. She is, in my estimation, an anointed messenger of God, and hard proof that God calls women to proclaim his Truth. I was listening to her recently when she said something peculiar. She stated that she had received an almost audible message from the Lord. I turned up the volume and inched closer to the speakers. I'm no seasoned veteran, but I've been around the block long enough to know that, as a preacher, you only get to play the "message from God" card once. I inexplicably used mine up to secure the last piece of chicken at a church potluck. But the message that Beth received was different. It went something like this......"My bride is paralyzed by unbelief."

I was stunned. The more I think about it, the more stunned I become. I had heard that the church was lazy, self-centered, irrelevant, and even ineffective. This message however, painted a much more perilous picture. You see, you can choose to be lazy, and you can choose to be self-centered, but you can't choose to be paralyzed. Lazy people don't move because they don't want to. Paralyzed people don't move because they can't. That means, that unless Mrs. Moore got her lines crossed, the church is in a predicament that she cannot remedy. Her disease runs too deep to answer to will-power.

And what is it that has robbed us of our freedom to act? Unbelief. The very thing that kept the Israelites out of the promised land, has us flat on our back on a gurney of works-righteousness. In the span of history, humans have had no greater problem than unbelief. In many ways, we have had no other problem. Every temptation that we have yielded to has been nothing more than the fruit of an unbelieving heart. Of course we believe in God on some level. We've read much of the Bible, and we can comprehend most of what we hear in sermons. The problem, is that we believe other things more deeply.

-Well that's enough ranting for now. I plan to have more on this subject next week. Hopefully I'll get a word from the Lord between now and then.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's quite an indictment. I suspect that in the court of Heaven we would be found "guilty." If we tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, we would even have to plead, "guilty." We definitely need to bring into question our deficit of faith from the pulpit through the pews. Until then, our unbelief will leave us powerless and ineffective, not to mention missing out on the best He has for His people.

Matthew 13:58 "Now He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief." NKJV

Hebrews 3:12 "Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God." NKJV

Hebrews 3:18-19 "And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief." NKJV

Yes, quite an indictment...

Kris said...

WOW So powerful!!!!

Anonymous said...

"Lazy people don't move because they don't want to. Paralyzed people don't move because they can't."

That is heavy. It seems to me that one side (Lazy) is a practical decision...the other (Paralyzed) seems very mystical...where do we find the root?

Good thoughts man!

jeremiah said...

"The problem, is that we believe other things more deeply."

This is clutch. I think this is the core of the issue bro. God matters to us, just not as much as other things.

Line about Chicken at the church potluck - stellar.