So many churches, so little effect!!!!!

[Aliciaforjesus]

You had stated a need for revival which means for the believers and you used the hype of asking God to send the Spirit of Truth which is the same spiritual format of conjuring up the Holy Ghost.

You said earlier that the focus is to be on Jesus, and not on the Holy Spirit. Did you lose your focus?

By His grace, I believe I was testifying of Jesus and the Truth of the Gospel, but if you do not want to examine the use of your words how they sound like those you preach against... then there is not much more to say in edifying you or correcting you or reminding you of our faith in Jesus Christ.

I shall pray for you. May the Lord help you be 100 % correct in being a witness of Him.

Longing to see God's word come true in the times like what we are in, is no sin.
Nor is believeing in what God said would happen in these days, or is shouting from the roof tops what you hear in secret.

Wordssssssssssssss!
Judges are to study the letter of the Law, and hang on every word!
They are quick to point out the smallest error of thier writen law.
Law bring punnishment if you step out of line with one letter of it's law.
Judges are like pharisees, they are bound by the law.

We have been set free from the law of sin and death!
No longer do I have to agree with death!
I place my eyes on Jesus, knowing that I am going to fall short!

I am ok with that!

I know that if I keep my eyes on Him, the word comes alive, in power and in the Holy Spirit!

Can I explain all of it!

No!

I can trust in the fact it does all work if we keep our focus on Him!

I find that the word confirms what God is doing in my life, and my concern with others is given to Jesus!

I don't know where another persons heart is with the Lord.

My responsiblity is to love God with all my heart and to love others as myself! I fulfill the comandments of God doing this.

Anything else should take a back seat, you must be willing to be patient and be kind and make the choice not to always have the last word.
Love never demands it own way!

We have to choose to Love, it's not easy laying hurt and anger down even when you know you are right.
It is much easier to hurt people back and argue a point, but we are to be peacemakers!

We are to reconcile people to God, showing them Jesus and the cross, which is based on the Love of God.
God knows that we always fall short.

If we are to become like Christ we need to center on Love, not argueing about doctrine!

It is up to God to reveal the Son, not you!

You are fighting all the time to get your point across, it comes across as frustration more than a word of freedom, it becomes a clanging symbol and bring devouring wolves into the seen.

I know this is not your intention, I can see your passion for Jesus!
I pray for freedom and liberty to come to you, and you would find rest in Jesus and let Him do the work in others.
You are to show people the Love of God, His patients and His compation, gentleness and meekness, longsuffering, and let yor goodness lead them to the truth.

Focus on Love, it's the key to life!

God is love.

If you don't focus on this first, you don't need to be teaching the word!
Because you would be teaching an error and missing the true meaning of Jesus and the cross!
Let God have His way in you so that through you the word comes alive in power, weither you understand it or not the word is moving and holding all things together. All you have to do is believe in Jesus, and Love!

Loving is fufillment of Gods commandments!

The words hold true if your a Christian or not!

Let the word confirm what God is doing already and do not be moved by every wind of doctrine that does not agree with yours.

Do not take it personnal if someone does not agree with you, isn't up to God for bringing the truth into a mans heart, not you!
Do fight in the flesh, pray for people, isn't that loving on them?
Not demanding your own way, letting it go, by taking it to the Father and letting Him move the mountian in thats persons life, not you!

Our fight is not against flesh and blood, so don't fight in the flesh!

Get on your knees and pray, lay down your own wants, and pray for them, love them in secret and God will reward you in the open, don't fight in the flesh, it's a loseing battle.

People will always tell you, something different about the word,
I want the faith of Abraham!
I don't want the faith of a lawer or a pahrisees because there is no faith in that!
We all fall short and need a renewing of our minds.
Gods ways are not our ways and people always mess things up!
Don't you think God understand this,
That why it all about Jesus, we all fall short no matter how hard we try!

Let get real!

Is any one with out sin yet?

No!

it's ok when we keep the Lord our focus because our sins are a time of growing because we can not continue in it, because we Love God, and trust in Jesus!
We don't have to listen to the death penalty of the Law anymore!
We rely on Jesus and God's promises. He takes us from glory to glory and teaches us precept upon percept, line apon line.
People mess things up!

We are to be able to rest in Jesus!

 

[watchmen]

Now you're speaking my language. *lol* I couldn't agree more. The church in America is practically impotent. If God is the same yesterday, today, and forever then God is not the one with a problem. That leaves us with only one other option... US!

This is because most the people in these churches are lost. What can a group of lost people offer the world?

 

[Aliciaforjesus]

The vast majority of christians today believe in God but do not believe God or in the power there of. They would rather embrace a doctrine that teaches a hypothetical transformation upon salvation which allows them to indulge in their own sinful desires from time to time rather than preach the real deal where people are literally delivered from addictions of all kinds and must assume the responsibility for themselves to exude self control and stay away from those guilty pleasures lest they fall back into the snare of the enemy. Sure we must lean on the Lord for strength however, not many people seem to understand that His strength abides in His love and if you truly love Christ, then it is that love that grants you the will power to resist the temptations of the enemy.

In essence, they want Christ to forgive them of their sin but they do not wish to give up their own sinful pursuits.

We must remember that our fight is not agaisnt flesh and blood!
Jesus has already won.

Our fight is won in prayer and trusting In the blood of Jesus.

we must not fight with eachother, we must love eachother!
If we choose to love, we obey God, if we pray for them in secret and choose to love and let our hurts go, it will move a mountian and cover a mulititude of sins.
We must choose to Love those who don't love us!
Laying down our own pain and our own wants in order to show the face of God.
Anything else is a lie.

You will know them by thier fruits.

 

[MahogonySnail]

I don't think there's a problem with all the churches and little effect. Be thankful they are churches and not mosques. There's different types, each have different purposes in the body. Then again perhaps they've done all they could and there no more to be done? Maybe the Gospel has been preached plenty and now they are focussing on caring for their members. Maybe God works in seasons and we could lighten up a bit about churches that seem not to be doing much or little effect. Remember seeds have to grow and be watered we can't be expecting fruit in the wrong seasons or fruit all the time 24/7, 365 days of the year. Much fruit is unseen and doesn't parade itself around in shows of revival, hype and hysteria, "moves of God" or things like this. Maybe the people saying "we need revival" are wrong, maybe we don't need revival, maybe the church is in the right place and doing the right thing what God wills it to be. I know God works in seasons, this is evidenced by the fact that all revivals of the past have been fairly short-lived, and have ended with difficult circumstances. eg the revivalist has burn out, suffers marriage break up, involved in adultery etc. It has always puzzled me why what people call revivals, turn out to be the opposite for those in the leadership position of those revivals, they usually have a fall.

 

[Aliciaforjesus]

I don't think there's a problem with all the churches and little effect. Be thankful they are churches and not mosques. There's different types, each have different purposes in the body. Then again perhaps they've done all they could and there no more to be done? Maybe the Gospel has been preached plenty and now they are focussing on caring for their members. Maybe God works in seasons and we could lighten up a bit about churches that seem not to be doing much or little effect. Remember seeds have to grow and be watered we can't be expecting fruit in the wrong seasons or fruit all the time 24/7, 365 days of the year. Much fruit is unseen and doesn't parade itself around in shows of revival, hype and hysteria, "moves of God" or things like this. Maybe the people saying "we need revival" are wrong, maybe we don't need revival, maybe the church is in the right place and doing the right thing what God wills it to be. I know God works in seasons, this is evidenced by the fact that all revivals of the past have been fairly short-lived, and have ended with difficult circumstances. eg the revivalist has burn out, suffers marriage break up, involved in adultery etc. It has always puzzled me why what people call revivals, turn out to be the opposite for those in the leadership position of those revivals, they usually have a fall.

I believe an inferted church, or one that does not grow, or one that does not move out of it's four walls is a stagnant church!
It is a church that has a attitude of it all about me!
Make me feel good, tickle my ears and send me home!
They have become more of a club where you pay your dues to belong.
A person that wears the right clothes, says the right words, fits the right mold as what is proper and politicaly correct at the time will fit in.
Oh, we must not forget about the money, if you have enough money you can be an elder or on a board of directors.

It is possible to have fruit 24/7 365 days a year, if You Abide in Jesus!
I am not a pastor, I don't have a church per say.
I can honestly say that I lead people to the Lord everyday.
There is not a day or a second in my life that is spent without Jesus.

My life is not my own, my days are spend for Him alone!
I see signs and wonders everyday, so much so I am very use to it, it is a common thing to me to see God move.

If I did have a church it would be huge, I don't even know how many people would be in it.
I am not into filling churches,
I am into filling Heaven!

My hearts desire is to bring as much joy to heaven as I can,
It's the only way I know to please my Father and I know it bring rejoicing when someone get saved.

I know just in the last week, a budist, a meth addict, a bulldog member, and 3 youths ages 12 to 18 gave there hearts to the Lord.

My house has become my church and to my church are people added daily!

The thing about revival that keeps being talked about in the church, may have some value because of what God says will happen in the last days, but you must be careful because the Devil knows his time is short!

He knows a move is coming and He has set up the body of Christ for great persicutions in the USA.

The word says that judgement falls on the house of God first, and just by the fruit of most christians lips they have sown judgement and division, whereby those that judge shall be judged with the same measurement that they judge. Is this why Jesus ref: to a church that He would say go away I never knew you?

Most churches reject the ones Jesus says, if you've done it unto the least of these you've done it unto me. What does it mean the least of these?

One time I was living at a church and was in a leadership postion.
The Lord put on my heart to pray for a house that I saw an amblulance at.
Every time I would ride my bike by this house the Lord would have me pray!
This happen for about three weeks!
I did not know these people!
One day someone from the church found an ID someone had lost in the parking lot, when he showed it to me the last name was someone I went to school with many years before, little did I know I was about to learn a big lesson on how the church really thinks and thier true motivation of the church. About a week after the ID was found a man rode up on a bike to dig in the dumpster of the church, I remembered his picture from the ID.
I started talking to the man, and began witnessing to him, his heart was hard against God, and he was very angry, and was homeless.

As I began talking to him and helping him out, he began to share a story of how he just lost his place to live and was now living on the streets in Clovis behind dumpsters. He was from the house that I had been praying for. He had not any thing to eat and no warm clothing, and to top it off it was raining and he had no blanket to keep him warm.

He had been coming around everyday for about 2 weeks and I finally got him to come and meet my Pastors and get him in the church, where they could help him and love on him.
The first Pastor after meeting him whispered in my ear, he's a dimond in the ruff, go get Him!
But when It came to the Lead Pastors I walked up to them and they looked like they were offened by him.
The next day, the Pastors wife came to the church to talk to me.
She said Alicia, we don't want him here, we are concerned about the liablity of the church and you have to tell him to go. I said to her as my insides turned inside out, this man has opened his heart up to the Lord and he is at the lowest piont of his life and is reaching out for help from God, and your afriad of liablity. I told her how I had been praying for a house down the street and that I felt led from the Lord to do so! I told her that he was from the house and came to the church after I had been praying for about three weeks for the house! We argued for a moment and then I told her that I would summit to thier authority and tell him what they said. I also comfirmed what she wanted me to say. I said that the Lord would hold them responible for sending him away. I told Him what they said and it hurt him deeply, and so did it inside me.
A couble weeks later a man that was drunk came into the church and walked right up to the pastor wife, it really scared her. I saw the man walk in the church and I knew she was in there alone, so I went to check on her. when I walked in I took over and got the man outside. My pastors wife said he wanted to know about the services and wnated me to get him an announcemet so I did.
As I began talking to him he told me he was a alcholic and that he was going to AA meeting next door to the church. He wanted to get sober, so that he could be a better Father for his children. He wanted to go back to church and recommet his life to the Lord. Every day for two weeks this man would come and visit me, and we would talk about how good the Lord was and that He would help him get sober.
The first time this man went to attend the church he was asked to leave because He got to close to the Pastor wife.
The first guy that came was from the house and the church rejected him.
The second man that came in was from the same house also.
Do you think this all was by chance that these two men just happen to be from the house the Lord had me praying for, neither of them knew the other had been to the churc, nor had they talked since the last time they had seen eachother and the one man became homeless.
The church rejected the second man also,
I continued to speak to these men and the second man went into a 6 month recovery program and rededicated his life to the Lord, but the first one became heart broke and even more hardhearted than before.
The first man expects churches to be mean to him, that all he ever sees!
The face of God is not what he has been shown by churches!

If you've done it unto the least of these you've done it unto me!

The revival your refering to is preached in this church, and they are one of the churches that say a big move of God is coming, but I can't help but think it is more about the money, at least in this church!

This is not the only church that rejects what God calls clean as unclean!
Most of the churches are like this!
I focus on Jesus and the lost!
I love on them, provide for them, and take them in, sometimes even in to my own home. In fact I have a man in my home right now that is kicking the meth habit.

I do live a life of loving my neighbor as myself, and my neighborhood is in the hood. One of the ruffest areas in Fresno!
My neighborhood has changed from fighting in the streets everyday to a queiter more peaceful place to live, and I don't think Gods finnished yet.

I think when God moves, it not going to be for one church or the other!
It's going to be those that Love and lay there lives down for the rejects that the church concider unworthy of the salvation they say they got for free!

It funny how many churches make you work to keep your salvation and don't even realize that they are charging you to pay for somthing that is free. They preach grace but show the law of sin and death with heavy demands they place on the children of God.

They have become a clanging symbol!

 

[Aliciaforjesus]

I come to you as a child of the Lord,
I do love my neighbor as myself, in fact there is not a person in this world I would not love as God says, too!
There is not a place I would not be willing to go even by myself if the Lord told me too!
I have gone to some of the darkest areas and preached the gospel without any fear.
I have seen God move every time, in ways that are more real than any church could present to me and pass off as real.

I know God!
I know Him very well!
I do not need anyone to approve or disaprove of my words because my words are not my own!

I am what I am because of God, not because of church!

In fact most churches reject even me,
not because of anything but mostly because the way I dress.

Or the fact of what I say about Love!

I don't just preach love I live love, and breathe love!

In Love I have my being and I stay there.

No longer do I worry about things I need or troubles that come.

I don't have to wish upon a God that seems like some far away star, wish I may wish I might!

I don't have to have any kind of special prayer thing or read some special teaching book on the way to find out to hear His voice!

I have found a God who took His own time to reveal Himself to me and made His word come alive even before I read it.

I don't understand all there is to know about God, but I find His word and promises are true.

I have the faith of Abraham, I was seven when He Revealed Himself to me, I still have the faith of that child today, He talks to me and I believe.
I have lived a life in service to the Lord, I have found great joy and freedom in my walk with Him!

I am not tossed to and fro like most christians trying to find the next self help book to take them to the next level with God.

I live my life like Paul, I go where the Lord send me!

I go around building churches, but not the kind made with human hands!

New churches are started every day, and the gospel is being spread as love to a people that have been rejected by most churches today and it's free!
When the gospel is shown in love first it open the door to a persons heart, God is love is He not?

If I love God with all my heart, and I love my nieghbor as myself, I recieve all the blessing and promises in the Word of God!
I fulfill all the word and the Law of the prophets,

I show the true face of God, not some over preached words that have lost there meaning!

I have the approval of God and He blesses whatever I put my hands too, not because I'm special, I am no favorite of God!

What I have is there for anyone who Believe in Jesus, and obeys His command to love!

It's not as hard as people make it out to be,

If you want God to show up, make a point to love the way the word says too! 1COR.13

As far as I see and what the Lord told me is that the church today worships a God they do not know! Acts17

To The Unknown God,

Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:
God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with human hands.
Nor is He worshiped with man's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath and all things.
And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined thier preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, 'For we are His offspring.'

Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising.

Truly these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained.

He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.

He draws people to me I don't even have to work at it!
Signs and wonders do follow those that believe in Jesus!

And it doesn't cost a thing, nor do you have to jump through any hoops, or make yourself change to fit anothers religious beliefs.

I don't have to say the right words or where the right clothes! I don't have to have any money!

I don't even have to go to church!
I'm not even free of sin yet!

 

[MahogonySnail]

I believe an inferted church, or one that does not grow, or one that does not move out of it's four walls is a stagnant church!
It is a church that has a attitude of it all about me!
Make me feel good, tickle my ears and send me home!
They have become more of a club where you pay your dues to belong.
A person that wears the right clothes, says the right words, fits the right mold as what is proper and politicaly correct at the time will fit in.
Oh, we must not forget about the money, if you have enough money you can be an elder or on a board of directors.

It is possible to have fruit 24/7 365 days a year, if You Abide in Jesus!
I am not a pastor, I don't have a church per say.
I can honestly say that I lead people to the Lord everyday.
There is not a day or a second in my life that is spent without Jesus.

Don't you think that all churches are under God's will and authority?

Maybe all churches aren't as full on as you seem to be, but is that a problem? Some churches provide great things for fellow believers to socialise and be together. Growth is not just about church numbers and bringing new people in. They may be growing in relationships and other things. As I said much of what happens and what God does is unseen within the heart, rather than being a show of emotion and hype. I used to believe as you do but I believe God showed me how He still works in such churches. Afterall, the Scripture says no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Spirit.

Please be careful, I've known a number of people full on for God as you seem to be, who eventually suffer burn out or have a big fall. Mostly they don't have their own church family and aren't really established in one, they are lone rangers. Of course they are always part of the body by the one Spirit. The key thing I've learnt is, God works in seasons.

You know most people involved in evangelism, even on the mission field in India for example, don't see such a rapid, frequent or sudden conversions as you seem to describe witnessing or being responsible for. I am wary of this because almost every sentence of yours starts with "I do this,", "I've seen that", "I've done this". Sounds a little like boasting to me.

 

[Aliciaforjesus]

Don't you think that all churches are under God's will and authority?

Maybe all churches aren't as full on as you seem to be, but is that a problem? Some churches provide great things for fellow believers to socialise and be together. Growth is not just about church numbers and bringing new people in. They may be growing in relationships and other things. As I said much of what happens and what God does is unseen within the heart, rather than being a show of emotion and hype. I used to believe as you do but I believe God showed me how He still works in such churches. Afterall, the Scripture says no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Spirit.

Please be careful, I've known a number of people full on for God as you seem to be, who eventually suffer burn out or have a big fall. Mostly they don't have their own church family and aren't really established in one, they are lone rangers. Of course they are always part of the body by the one Spirit. The key thing I've learnt is, God works in seasons.

You know most people involved in evangelism, even on the mission field in India for example, don't see such a rapid, frequent or sudden conversions as you seem to describe witnessing or being responsible for. I am wary of this because almost every sentence of yours starts with "I do this,", "I've seen that", "I've done this". Sounds a little like boasting to me.

I do believe God is moving in some churches and in many churches I find some real Christians that bear real fruit.
We are like sheep thrown into the wolves!
Wheat and tears, and a separation is coming!
There is going to be a shaken going on!
The houses made on sand will crumble and fall, and the ones built on the rock will stand.
Judgement falls first on the House of God!
Who said any of this is all of a sudden, I've been doing this for years!
I do this where ever I go, Fresno is one of many!
Salvation follows me where ever I go! I talk like this because what I say is my testimony of God as he has revealed it to me, not just quotes from paper.
I am not just some Church religious Sunday Christian nor do I plan to fill anyones church, but I can guarentee I am real.
I do not know all there is to know, nor is my life free from sin!
I do know God!
If this is bragging than so be it.
What a thing to brag about, God is real!
What a thing to say, people are getting saved!
I believe the bible talks about a veil being removed and a time of the gentiles being fulfilled.
I believe like Pharro and Moses He will use it to show His glory!
Abraham had two children which one are you?

Is it really hard for you to believe that God would do somthing that doesn't put money in a church pocket, He said my house should be a house of prayer and you have made it into a den of theives.

Many churches are a good example of how we are not suppose to be and it will be by the fruit of our lips that we shall be justified or not.
There is a reason God said not to Judge, it's part of the old law of sin and death, the church is on the verge of great persicution because of this!

It will be a time of great testing like never before.
It is not a time to sit in a seat Brother!
There is no weariness to those who wait upon the Lord, yes troubles will come but He does not leave you to fend for yourself!

I focus on Jesus and I focus on love.
I don't always have this like this, but it has happend even greater than this before, in Washington people were coming to the Lord so much it dropped the crime rate in the worst part of the city and churches wanted me to speak.
200 people in a short time, it blew me away and also the churches who witnessed it! I've never seen such hunger for God, it changed my life!
I was preaching in a Quaker church and these people didn't even believe in the baptism of the Holy Ghost but when I shared my testimony God backed it up and people who didn't even know what it was bursted out and began speaking in tongues! The whole place came undone!

Listen my life is not my own,
I have lost any other desire this world has to offer, I find no other Joy than to share Jesus with all, and love all those God puts in my life, love is more than just words, it's a way of life! And it a choice! Life or death, heaven or hell!
We are all free to choose!
God is love is He not?
If we abide in Him what does the word promise?
Love never fails!
There is no labor in love only rest and peace, and a joy that goes way beyond what we could ever think or imagen.

i love God with all my heart.

I can see really clear the condition of the Body of Christ,
and I'm sure I am not the only one God is doing this to right now.
I think we are closer than the church preseves.

It's a time to be really sure you believe in Jesus, and if your not sure you better cry out to Jesus,
Those that call upon the name of Jesus shall be saved.
But many will say didn't we heal the sick, and cast out demons in your name and He will say to them go away I never knew you.
Who do you think He was talking about?
Abraham had two children!
I don't need to fill the churches, I need to fill heaven, God is not a God who lives in a man made temple, and His Glory is for Him!
God does things to confound the wise, what about Ester, John the Baptist, or Paul, David and galioth!
Abraham?

 

[MahogonySnail]

Alicia forgive me for having a degree of skepticism about what you are saying, but I don't know you personally. I have known God to move in miraculous and wonderful ways. But 200 people in a short time, reducing the crime rate of Washington.. Well you said you aren't a pastor, you must be an apostle, seriously. I have noticed an awful lot of "I's" in your post. I mean, salvation follows you wherever you go, shouldn't it be..wherever Jesus goes? Maybe i'm being picky, sorry. No one's taking a seat, but some would argue that revivals and "moves of God" do more harm than good. All these "stagnant churches" are supposed to pick up the pieces and accomodate all the christians after a revivalist doesn't do their job properly or when there's fall out. And by fall out I mean fall out... 200 get saved in one setting, great.. then what? mentoring, discipleship? It takes about 10,000 hours per person for discipleship, before you could really leave them on their own. Was it just a one time show? Or were they truly grounded in the faith. All things for a purpose. We can't be in a continual state of revival, at least not the type of revival that most associate with revivals, emotional hype and sensationalism. People travelled to these revivals without thinking about their physical needs, accomodation or food, they said to themselves "God will provide", drive to the revival, realise they have no food or money, and expect the churches around them to accomodate them, all thousands of them. Chasing after the next move of God.