The Clarion Call- Re-Launch Our Mission Together- THURSDAY
The Clarion Call
by
Rocky Fleming
Thursday - Re-Launch our Mission Together
I've been focusing on our house as God's family. Yesterday I shared with you the pain I endured as a child with the conflicts between my parents. I also shared with you how my prayers led to their reconciliation, to their healing, and then to my healing. Hopefully you got my point that we have some hurting children in God's family (the Church) that need love, nurturing and our effort with their healing. If we do not address these issues, a root of bitterness will continue to be perpetuated and the Church (our family) will be prevented from being the powerful influence that our Nation needs at this time. This Country is desperate for the Church to step up and bring healing to our land.
I want to talk to you now about the children of a house called America, who were fathered and mothered by the founders of this Country. Yes, as Americans we too are a family, and this Country (house) was built on the Judeo-Christian principles found in scripture. However, through the years recent leaders and trends have eroded and abandoned those principles, and as a result America has become a dysfunctional family. As most dysfunctional families do, this Country now battles with each other instead of for each other. We have allowed past hurts to fester rather than be reconciled, and as long as these conflicts rage this house called America will be torn apart. I believe our Nation entered into this adversarial relationship with each other because the Church (God's family) has not played her part in being the reconciler of the issues of pain and dissent in our Nation's family. We've been more interested in maintaining our own selfish dysfunctional condition rather than being a positive influence on our Country. Never think that the good in this Country came through any way other than Christ, and the Church was not at one time making a difference. When the Church was strong our Country was blessed. This tells me that no good will return to this Country without Christ and His Church leading the way. Never has this Country needed the Church to step up and launch a mission of healing and reconciliation with the conflicts that rage in our Nation more than now. Therefore, it is time that the Church needs to rethink its purpose and re-launch its mission to this Country before it is too late.
I mentioned to you the first day of this week that the world and national news is so negative with some kind of battleground going on all over the world, including this Country, that it has impacted my own peace. I believe it is because I feel the grief of the Holy Spirit, and He will not allow me to find peace until I take the next step that He shows me. That is why I have taken this first step in writing this challenging devotional series. However, I have also come to understand that when I am stirred as I have been, it is essential that I do not quench the Spirit by acting in haste, and without prayer. Therefore, I will tell you that I can see only two steps that need to be taken immediately, which is prayer as God's family, and our work toward reconciliation in the Body of Christ. These steps need our immediate attention.
I mentioned the racial issues in God's family yesterday, for that is most obvious. But there are a bunch more reconciliations that need to be done within the Body of Christ within churches, between churches, between denominations, and between Christian families. These petty or prideful conflicts with God's family must be reconciled if the Church in this Country can be part of a massive new awakening that stands at our door ready to rush in. But we must get our house in order before this can happen.
The Church is an organism because we are God's family, and as an organism we need spiritual wellness. We are currently not well. As with a healthy body with different parts, we exist with each other in unity for God's honor and purposes. We are interdependent with one another if we are a healthy organism. But we have lost that interdependence. Sure, we have unique aspects in each church or denomination just like there were three children in my family who look and act differently. God's children might look and worship in different ways. But we are a family and we rejoice or suffer together. My sisters and I all hurt when our parents hurt each other. But we all rejoiced when they reconciled and healed, for we were all healed. That is how a family works and as well the way an organism works. As the Church, we are not distinct corporate entities. We are not Baptist or Methodist or Catholic or Presbyterian or Assembly or Pentecostal, or independent franchises. We might act like it but that prideful distinction was never in the mind of Jesus when He gave His life for the Church. He had in mind that we are His family and that is why we need to go back to His model if we want to see the dynamic Church this Country needs. We are a family and we need to operate as one. That is why reconciliation in our family is a looming need to restore our health.
When our house gets in order with our reconciliations, I believe the Holy Spirit will be pleased to move over us as we desperately need Him to do. When He does, I believe it will be an amazing awakening that will minister within the Church and to this land as never before. Let us not stand in the way of His outpouring by holding on to petty grudges, erroneous distinctions, and a root of bitterness. The stakes are very high for our family and our Country. Now is the time to awaken our Family and invite the Holy Spirit to move into our house.