By: Donna Kazenske
I went to a church service at a particular church a short time ago and was totally amazed at what I heard and saw. I have been to many church services throughout the years that were very similar to this one, but for some reason God opened up my spiritual eyes to see in a way that I had never seen before. It’s one thing to see something with your natural sight, but when God takes the veil away and allows you to see something with your spiritual eyes, it is something totally different.
The so called "worship team" started the whole thing off with an instrumental secular hard rock song. I was so shocked, I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Then they proceeded into the "worship service" singing Christian choruses with loud twangy guitars and resounding bass guitar etc. The music was loud and annoying to me personally. There was NO anointing whatsoever on the music they were calling "worship". They finally slowed things down a bit and began to sing an old Dallas Holmes song and the anointing of God broke through. What really got my attention was that the anointing did not come UNTIL they quit playing the loud twangy lead guitar and began to mellow things out. Was that a hint from God regarding what He likes or what?
After the worship service, the preacher got up and started talking about money...you know the scoop....if you give you get....etc. There are certain truths regarding giving, but when you have to give to get healed, something is not quite right with this theology. Scripture says, "By His stripes, we WERE healed." We don’t have to pay for healing. It was all done and paid for on the cross. We should give because we love God and want to see His Kingdom expand in the earth.
The preacher then proceeded to preach his sermon, which was a good message with a lot of interesting things thrown into it, but somehow, seeing things through spiritual eyes changed my whole perception on this meeting. I was pretty much grieving through the entire service and couldn’t wait for it to get over.
When I returned home I had to cry out to God for mercy. "Lord, start with me. Change me. Create in me a heart for YOU and YOU alone. Don’t allow me to want to be entertained by music that does not glorify your name. Don’t allow me to just go through the motions of playing church instead of BEING the church. God forgive me and deliver me from those things that hinder what you want to do in me and through me."
When God opens our eyes to see things as they really are, it’s both good and bad. Good in a sense that we are now able to see things the way God sees things - reality check. Bad in the sense that it’s very hard to deal with these issues in our finite minds and physical bodies.
I don’t know exactly how to word what I need to say, so I will call it a "spirit of entertainment" for lack of a better term. The body of Christ loves to be entertained. If it doesn’t have a beat or doesn’t arouse our flesh, most of us don’t like it. We call it boring. Teenagers don’t know what to do with themselves when they go to church because they think it’s boring most of the time (and it very well might be boring). Why are they bored? Are they so used to being entertained that nothing else will move them?
Why can’t we just invite the Holy Spirit to come into our services and allow Him to show Himself to our teenagers? Why are we not seeing God move in so many of our churches today? Why are the services boring? Is is because we are a prayerless people? Is it because we have our own agenda and refuse to allow God to move? Is it because we are in a spiritual stupor and really don’t give a rip what happens at church? Are we just going through the motions, doing our good deed for the week? Are we going to church to be entertained or are we going because we want GOD?
I ask these questions in this article because I see a church today much like the Laodicean church in the book of Revelation. They thought they had verything and were in need of nothing, but God told them otherwise. He told them they were blind, poor, miserable, wretched and naked. They couldn’t see or understand what God was telling them because they were spiritually blind. They were a mess and didn’t even perceive it. How many of us are spiritually blind to spiritual things today?
I have really been asking God to deliver me from spiritual blindness because I want to SEE! And I personally believe that there is a remnant of people in the body of Christ who feel the very same way. We want our spiritual eyes to be opened to spiritual things, and above all else, we want to see JESUS. We want to see Him moving in our lives, in our homes and in our churches. We want to see Him working in the lives of our children and see them doing the will of God. We want to see the Kingdom of God come to earth and totally transform us. We want to see the lost saved, healed and delivered. We want to tap into the realm of the supernatural and let God be God in our midst.
There is such a lack of true commitment to Christ in the church today and this really scares me. Sin is rampant in much of the church with many leaders either blind to it or totally unmoved by it. Why is this?
What is it going to take for the church to come out of the state that she is in?
911 rocked America and some of the church woke up for a week or two and cried out to God. I believe there is still a remnant of church people praying for America and the protection of our country, but for the most part, the church as a whole is not praying.
I thank God for those who really have a heart for God and spend hours seeking His face. THIS IS TOTALLY AWESOME! I thank God for those who pray and intercede for souls to be saved and lives to be changed. My prayer is, "God raise up more prayer warriors. God, raise up more prophets like John the Baptist and Elijah. God, raise up a people who will love YOU more than they love themselves."
It’s not entertainment that we need. The world has entertained us since we were born. We’ve been so de-sensitized by the world, the devil and even by the so called church that we often times feel absolutely nothing towards God or the things of God. We’re in a spiritual stupor and need the Holy Spirit to bring us out of it. We need to get on our faces and pray until the breakthrough comes. Whatever it takes God, do it!
God make us desperate for YOU. We give you permission to strip away all the excess and allow us to experience YOU.
Blessings,
Donna Kazenske
Sure Word Ministries
