Every Day with Jesus - The Church at the Crossroads – Buch gebraucht kaufen

9770967188059

leichte Gebrauchsspuren

12 x 17 cm

Heft/Zeitschrift

Englisch

JUL / AUG 1999

A look back
FOR READING & MEDITATION - ACTS 2:42-47
"Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles." (v.43)
We are now more than half way through the last year of the twentieth century - a year in which we are preparing ourselves spiritually to face the challenges of a new millennium. The theme we are about to explore is another with which we must come to grips if we are to make a difference in the next century: the reformation of the Church.
I have hyphenated the word to make it clear that I am not calling for a reformation such as we had in the sixteenth century, when the Bible was restored to its rightful place and the Church was to a large extent purified. The call I am making is not for a return to the sixteenth century, but for a return to the first century. Without hesitation I say that if the Church of Jesus Christ is to make as great an impact upon the world as did the first century Church then it must return to its roots, to those
glorious years after the outpouring of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost when, we are told, the world was turned "upside down" by the Spirit-filled disciples (Acts 17:6, KJV).
No doubt you will have heard how the young Billy Graham held a lengthy evangelistic crusade in the city of Los Angeles. Thousands were converted to Jesus Christ, including a number of Hollywood's film stars. Later, some of the more liberally minded ministers in Los Angeles accused Billy Graham of putting the churches back a hundred years. When that information reached him he is said to have remarked: "Oh dear, I'm so sorry. I was really trying to set it back 2,000 years." That's how far back we must travel if we are to see the way in which the Church is to be re-formed - not a mere 500 years, but 2,000 years.

What of the future? 2 JUL
FOR READING & MEDITATION - MATTHEW 16:13-20

"on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." (v.18)
Yesterday we said that if the Church is to rise to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century then it must be reformed. And to be reformed it needs to look back, not 500 years to the time of the Reformation, but 2,000 years to the time when the waters of life sprang fresh from the Rock.
In my marriage seminars I tell people that in orderto understand how marriage should be, we have to look back to the model of marriage given in the Garden of Eden. Only when we sec, and sec clearly, how God meant marriage to be are we in a position to spot the deviations when we move away from His intention. Similarly, the contemporary Christian Church, I believe, urgently needs to look back to the original model in order to understand how God designed His Church to operate in the world. Only then will we be able to spot the deviations and sec how far we have gone astray.
During a television debate I watched on the state of the Church the question was asked: "Will a Christian Church still exist at the end of the twenty-first century?" The general feeling among the group - clearly mostly nonChristians - was that the Church is outdated and irrelevant, and that within a hundred years it will be defunct. As I listened to the debate I smiled to myself for there came singing into my consciousness our text for today: "I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." Yet although our Lord has promised that the Church will not be overcome, it does not follow that it is where it should be spiritually. It needs most desperately a spiritual overhaul, a re-formation. Without that there is little hope of the twenty-first century being turned "upside down".

1999

BN6011