Humility

The Times and Our Response

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Munch's 'The Scream'

I can’t remember a time in my life when more people are on edge. Short fuses and strong emotions don’t mix. Everywhere I look, people are either ready to pop a vein in their heads or to bury those same heads in their hands out of fear or sorrow.

In the last few days, I have had numerous encounters with people who appear to be losing it. What’s even stranger is that I spent most of last week at home sick. That makes the percentage of tense encounters even higher.

While I’m not one for end times speculations, it sure seems to me that the time before the Lord returns is running out. Reading the biblical descriptions of what people will be like in those days reads like America 2010.

Which is why,  more than ever, the Church needs to be at its most humble, winsome, and loving. We cannot be the angry, fearful, hateful people. Because we are called to be like the Lord, and the Lord is a rock and sure foundation, we need to look like Him in the eyes of desperate, angry, fearful people. We must be solid, but humbly so. We must turn the other cheek more than ever before and refuse to dish back what is dished out to us. We must be willing to accept being called wrong even when we are right. We simply cannot afford to repay anger with anger and fear with fear.

How do we get the American Church to that point? The only answer is to die to self.

Fact is, dying to self is pretty much the answer to 90 percent of the questions and issues that face Christians living in these times. If we only live to preserve our material goods, our status, and our positions on negotiable issues, if we live only to ensure that we always look good in the world’s eyes, then we will fail to stake out the higher ground and only descend into the madness around us.

The Desperate Need for Statesmen

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So a Republican whose major claim to fame is going nude in Cosmo is the new senator from Massachusetts. And conservatives everywhere are rejoicing.

Forgive me if I don’t blow a horn and wear a silly hat.

No, I can’t get pumped about yet another political lightweight who drank the party-line Kool-Aid and talks about real change. Frankly, the Democrats and Republicans are true to one goal only : their own political ambitions.

Can I ask a simple question? Here it is:

Where are the statesmen?

America is in bad shape. Honestly, I think the collective wound is deeper and more threatening than anyone in D.C. cares to admit. And that wound is only going to get deeper if we don’t throw the bums out and put some serious people on Capitol Hill. People who do what is right, not because it is makes the bigwigs happy, but because they fear God.

What we need are statesmen. Folks who don’t go all weak in the knees when the GOP party chairman calls ’em up on the line or Barney Frank blows ’em a kiss. People who remember the point of this country. People who don’t pass laws just because. People of deep convictions that can’t be sold to the highest bidder. Intellectuals with big hearts, who are widely read and understand history. People with a spine, who can stand up to dictators around the globe and not flinch (or bow).

We need guys like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. Remember them?

And this terrible lack of statesmen applies to the American Church. The national stage of Christian leaders is littered with lightweights who have the wrong motivations, wrong answers to difficult questions, and no vision.

Jesus called Simon a rock. He said He would build His Church on a rock like that.

But where are those rocks today? Where are those kinds of Church statesmen in America 2010? Seriously, can you name a half dozen Christian players on the national stage today considered to have a brilliant mind and a heart of compassion?

I admit that part of the problem here is that the kind of personality that makes for a genuine Church statesman is the humble one that stays out of the limelight and isn’t listening to himself on Christian radio.

Still, desperate times call for humble, nameless Church statesmen to rise up.

Call them prophets if you will. Call them the mighty heroes of old. But for all our sakes, someone, anyone, please call them! We need Christians like that from every profession and walk of life.

And we need them now.

Not to Us

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On the back of last week’s post (“Your Holy Spirit Is W-A-Y Too Safe“), I want to add an addendum.

In some charismatic circles, much is being made of the recent “outpouring” at the International House of Prayer (IHOP) in Kansas City. Now it appears that Rick Joyner’s MorningStar Ministries has brought in Todd Bentley of the infamous Lakeland (Fla.) “revival,”  and, of course, we’re getting claims of a fresh wave of glory and outpourings (HT: Bene D). And yes, Mike Bickle of IHOP recently spoke there, bringing it all full circle. (See Bentley’s tweets starting Jan. 6 for the blow-by-blow.)

I’m writing this Sunday evening, Jan. 10, but I want to take us back a couple weeks to Christmas.

When the Messiah was born into the world, the people who got the notification were those on the fringes. Shepherds. Wise men from the East. Not the greater nation of Jews; they missed it.

Should churches see revival in the days ahead, I believe that those touched by genuine moves of the Holy Spirit are going to be those OUTSIDE traditional charismatic church venues. These will be churches where people have been earnestly praying for God to shake them out, churches filled with people most desiring of repentance, not charismata. They will be people who are waiting expectantly for God to manifest Himself in their midst in a way they are not willing to plan, a move that happens on God’s timetable and God’s way. And that move will excite people whose bookshelves are devoid of tomes by Bickle, Joyner, Hagin, Roberts, and so on.

Most of all, I think if such a revival comes, it will be among humble people who can’t point back with pride and say, “Look at all the revivals we helped birth! Look at all the gifts we’ve manifested and how God has used us! Look how doggone charismatic we are.”

In other words, should we have revival break out in churches in the next few years, it’s not going to be among the usual suspects.