When the worship band gets in the way of worship. It was our first time visiting this particular fellowship. We had just taken our seats in a very quiet room. The musicians began to assemble upfront, the guitar player put his strap over his shoulder and began to play some pretty face ripping power chords! Ok, this was going to be different! But this, in various forms and styles, is what is actually becoming more and more commonplace in many fellowships- ...
It would be great if every church had a big sign in front of their church building saying, "Church can't save you! You must be born again!" If you want to get to heaven you must be "born again". (see John 3:3-5) I'm probably not going to be able to say this any better than other times I've tried, but when is the church going to wake up and start taking this truth seriously? One of the greatest tragedies on planet earth is ...
If you get an email warning you of supernatural manifestations of "Kundalini fire" with a link to the videos on YouTube should you watch them? For a long time various churches have been having what they call "revival" that includes what some say are supernatural angelic visitations, various "manifestations", breaking out in uncontrollable laughter, jerking, making animal sounds, gold dust, and so on. As someone who came out of the New Age Movement and was set free by Jesus Christ from the occult I want to say in the plainest way possible: Don't ...
I came across a post today authored by "Cris" that totally grabbed and arrested my attention: Jesus doesn't need your heart (if that's all you're giving Him). Wow! Did that ever make me think! Especially when it was followed by this verse: "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God..." (Romans 12:1) Jesus doesn't just want my heart... He wants ALL of me! It's one thing to say that Jesus has our ...
More and more we hear of out-of-church Christians who have left the IC (institutional church) because they believe it's "the end of the Church Age". One of the biggest proponents behind this teaching is Harold Camping who claims the Church Age has ended. Camping teaches that Christians should stop going to church and "depart from churches." The teaching, however, has spread far and wide beyond Harold Camping and is rapidly gaining traction. Many people have done exactly as Camping and others have told them to ...
There are some who believe they can lose their salvation and talk as if their hope of heaven is hanging by a thread that can at any moment be broken by something they do. They speak as if salvation is their work; if not to obtain it, to keep it. I have always wondered how a person could truly know themselves and believe that their salvation was dependant on something they could do. My 26 years of being a Christian ...
I keep running across "Christian blogs" that talk about "losing your salvation" over a "single sin". Shortly after becoming a new believer in the Lord I met a man who claimed that he hadn't sinned in months. He held to the idea that it was possible for a Christian to be perfectly free from sin and in a state of "Sinless perfection". Later he came to see that his belief in sinless perfection was wrong and that he had been deceived in believing it. On another occasion I was singing at a church. After I'd finished singing I was approached by a boy who was in torment over his struggle with pornography. He described how he'd repent, throw out his magazines, but at times being tempted, he would later return to retrieve them. His church taught that if he sinned he would ...
"Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting." (Acts 2:2) I'm not content with a "sound from earth"- I want to hear "a sound from heaven". If the early church had never heard that sound I wonder where we'd be today? I'm not talking about some of the weird stuff going on today that passes for a sound from heaven. I don't recall reading that the early church barked liked dogs, rolled around the floor in uncontrollable laughter, had gold dust falling from the sky or anything like that. What I'm talking about has nothing to do with this sort of thing at all- I'm not interested in going to revival meetings where men prance around and make big shows of the "power of God", creating a ...
In "Whatever Happened To Jesus?" I give a call to return to the "old paths" of faith in Christ as well as a call to return to our "first love" of Him. I wrote the song early on in my Christian walk (about 3 years after being born again) and have watched and pondered the direction of the church ever since that time. I wish I could say the things I wrote about in 1987 have improved, but sadly, in my opinion, they have only gotten worse. I've had the song in various stages of recording and decided to finally finish it and release it this year. As I do, I'm very concerned by many of the things I see going on in today's church... I'm sure that some people who heard my first song about the lukewarm church ("Nice Little ...
Scripture has much to say about God and His desire for a relationship with His people. We have a God who is steadfast in love, and a people who are prone to wander. You would think that it would be hard to grow cold in affection when you've been shown the greatest love the world has ever known, and yet, though we are the very bride of Christ and loved beyond measure... we still find a way to mess things up and stray! In my song "Whatever Happened To Jesus?" I talk about that. In Revelation 2:4 we read, "Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love." My song addresses various issues, but at the bottom of it all, I suppose forsaking our first love of Him would be at the heart of the matter; it is our forsaking ...
"Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition..." (2 Thessalonians 2:3) Scripture tells us that before the return of Jesus we will see a great apostasy, a great falling away. But a falling away from what? Some point to the large number of people leaving churches as evidence of this great falling away- "they are walking away from the faith". But it's not people leaving the church that marks apostasy, it's the church leaving Jesus! I wrote the song "Whatever happened To Jesus?" early in my Christian walk. I was in love with Jesus as a new believer and was grieved by what I saw happening in the church. It almost seemed like the church was desperate to be ...
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