This is Why Churches are Struggling
There is a popular game show. It awards points not for giving the right answer but for asking the right question. Imagine if you will this scenario. Contestant number one says, “I would like to take Struggling Churches for 500.” The host then says, “1 Corinthians 16:22 says, If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let Him be accursed.” Contestant number one asks, “Why are so many modern churches dead and dying?” He is then awarded 500 points.
This is not a game show question. It is reality. The word “accursed” means to be separated from God. All around, there are empty church buildings whose doors are closed forever. Once, they were a life-changing source of hope. Now their light is darkened. Why? Because man-made traditions became more important than the commandments of God. Personal preference overruled the presence of the Holy Spirit and the love for their church overcame their love of Christ. So, Jesus said, “I hold this against you. You have left the love you had for Me in the beginning. Therefore, I have come and taken your light from this place.”
When the Apostle Paul said, “If you don’t love Jesus, you will be accursed,” he was not pronouncing judgment. He was simply stating a fact. He spoke these words as a warning to God’s people and to God’s church. In the same verse, Paul prays that the grace of the Lord Jesus would be with us. Jesus wants His church to live. In Revelation 2, He calls for the loveless churches to remember where they were before they fell. He urges them to change their hearts and to love Him as they did at first.
Dying Churches
Why are so many churches dead and dying? Well, it seems that so many have forgotten the first and greatest commandment. That is to love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. Remember that churches are made up of individuals. So let each of you who are Christians decide to return to your first love. If your church is struggling, I challenge you. Earn God’s favor with your obedience. Prove your love with your actions. If we are rooted and established in the love of God, we will be filled with the fullness of God.
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.
By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us.”
I John 4:7-19 NKJV
https://bible.com/bible/114/1jn.4.7-19.NKJV
Douglas & Deborah Huff
From Down Where the Pavement Ends
Email- douglas@pavementendsministry.com
