Looking At The Church Through The Eyes Of God

Looking at the Church Through the Eyes of God

By Pastor James May

July 26, 2011

How does God see his church today? What is the main factor in the mind of God when he looks at the church?

There are a lot of things that come to my mind as I look at the church.

1) I see a lot of churches that are filled with people who love God and yet are faced with nearly impossible situations every day. Sometimes the circumstances of life nearly choke the life out of even the most sold out Child of God. No matter how much we want to serve the Lord; or what vision we may have; there are times when we seem to lose faith and wonder what God is doing in us?

2) I see churches that are caught up in listening more to the voice of men than the voice of God, embracing the methods that have made other ministries and churches grow to vast numbers and tremendous financial resources, with outreach programs that meet the needs of so many people. These churches are bursting at the seams, unable to build fast enough to keep up with the crowds who attend. (But when we try to use their methods; it creates little more than a small pop and then it fizzles out)

3) I see churches whose focus is on pleasing men rather than God; whose image among those of the world is a primary focus and they love the praises of men. Their desire seems to be more focused on what the news has to say about them than what God has to say.

4) I see churches who love the Word of God; in fact they love the scriptures so much that they are fully focused on soaking up any teaching that they can get. The problem is that they often consider the words of the preacher or teacher who wrote the commentary, to be more important than the Bible itself. How many doctrines in the church have come from the teachings of a man and not of the Word of God itself?

5) I see the small churches, like all of those in our district, who are struggling to make ends meet; and whose greatest desire is to be led by the Holy Ghost, filled with the power of the Holy Ghost and preachers who are fully committed to preaching the truth to a lost and dying world; and yet the world relegates those small churches to the ranks of the unsuccessful and irrelevant because their impact is so limited.

Who can deny that the church of these last days is a very diversified and divided group? Jesus gave us a snapshot of the differences in his church in the Book of Revelation, chapters 2 and 3. Where do we as a church; and you as a part of the church fit in his description of the Seven Churches of Asia?

We have those who can be identified with the Laodicean Church; a rich church that doesn’t want or need God’s help to operate their programs; who can fulfill the desires of the flesh for all who attend, but there is no gospel going forth to change the hearts of the people and turn them to a life in Christ.

Some identify with the Ephesian Church because they are bearing the name of Christ, holding onto the gospel and preaching the truth, yet they are slowing losing the anointing of the Holy Ghost because of the lack of a personal relationship with Jesus.

There are those who are like the Church of Smyrna that Jesus names in Revelation 2:8. They are poor in this world’s goods, without stately sanctuaries or ornate buildings, but they are rich in the presence of the Holy Spirit. While there are some of these in America, I would have to say that the majority of these “Spiritually Rich Churches” are found in foreign lands where there is no access to the wealth of this world, and they have to fully rely on God. Many of them face persecution as great as anything mentioned in the Bible.

Like someone said a few days ago, “We in America don’t know what persecution is. Our idea of persecution is to have someone snicker at us when we are saying a blessing over dinner at a restaurant.”

Some of our churches identify with the Church at Pergamos. Their great works among men are knows around the world, but they aren’t holding on to the fullness of the truth of God’s Word and are casting a stumbling block before men because they are teaching that a doctrine of universalism where all men will be saved even if they don’t give up their idols.

Others are more like Thyatira Church whose works are also very great and very good. Their people are committed to serving those in need and every member is taught to use their “Spiritual Gift” in service to God and man. They speak a lot of “Christianese”, but their works far outweigh their faithfulness to Jesus. The worst part is that there is never a message on true repentance coming from the pulpit. The people of the church leave the church week after week with the weight of sin still upon them, but they feel good about themselves because they have been busy working for the Lord. Someone needs to tell them that all the good works in the world won’t wash away sin.