This breaks my heart…..
THE CHRISTIAN POST REPORTS:
“Gallup has found that trust and confidence in organized religion have plummeted over the past two decades. In 2021, only 37% of the public reported having a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in religious institutions, a massive decline since 2001 when 60 percent reported feeling confident,”
Americans are leaving church and most aren’t coming back: report
These ugly things sure add fuel to the fire for people to leave organized religion, Too much of the American Church has become about being a star, like a movie star, big expensive buildings, big payrolls, fancy, dancy like the secular world, like Hollywood, smoke and mirrors, how do people like me, the common folk of America, relate to that? All this STUFF, is not the JESUS I see in the Bible. THERE ARE STILL MANY, MANY CHURCHES THAT ARE SOLID IN JESUS! I KNOW, I SEE IT! I PREACH AT MANY! Let us all AIM to be JESUS like! Let people see JESUS in you. While people roam the streets in America, no home, no food, fancy dancy will not help them. JESUS! JESUS!
Does your Church minister to the disabled? Too shut-ins?
When is the last time you have seen a homeless person in your Church? How about someone who is addicted to drugs or alcohol? Someone who has not bathed in weeks? Someone who has not had a good meal in a long time?
That is real ministry! Amen!
People should be able to see JESUS in us! Smith Wigglesworth said one time, “I want people to see JESUS in me, not Wigglesworth.” AMEN! PTL!
Hillsong Atlanta Pastor Sam Collier Announces Resignation, Cites Recent Scandals as Reason
Jerry Falwell Jr. Isn’t a Hypocrite
I could list more, the list gets longer as time goes on. I am sure you understand why my heart breaks for the Bride of Christ.
Dr. Jim Denison shared this today at FGGAM:
The only way to “find life and flourishing”
In Jesus the Great Philosopher: Rediscovering the Wisdom Needed for the Good Life, biblical scholar Jonathan T. Pennington identifies two characteristics of biblical ethics: imitative and agentic.
Biblical moral standards are imitative in that God’s ethical demands are rooted in his own nature. According to Pennington, “Humans will only find life and flourishing when they imitate their Creator, when they learn to inhabit the world in the ways that accord with God’s own nature, will, and coming kingdom.”
Biblical ethics are agentic in that “we as moral agents matter.” As Pennington notes, “Who we are as people is significant—our understanding, our emotions, our motives, and our desires are wrapped up in what is right and wrong.”
This imitative and agentic ethic is a kind of “virtue ethics” that “focuses not just on the external issues of right and wrong but on our interior person and our development to be a certain kind of people. In the Bible, this means becoming more like God himself.”
Here’s the problem: we need God’s help to become more like God. Humans, because we are fallen and sinful by nature, cannot transform ourselves into a holiness we do not possess. I once heard our attempts to be good enough for God likened to a group of tourists who decided to swim from California to Hawaii. The best swimmers got further than the others, but all drowned.
