A Debilitating Cancer Inside The Body

Imagine with me for a minute (without closing your eyes) and visualize yourself in your local hospital corridor. Wired glass windows, automatic closed doors to restricted areas, stale odors, and bland, modern decor, the hospital reeks with the cleanness of a used cars salesman on a hot August day. You stand in your supposed sterile spot aside a loved one's door as the doctor explains to you that in the current condition of the patient, the diagnosis looks ominous, but there are a few options on the table that need to be explored and hopefully the right actions can be taken in a timely manner that the patient can recover and continue life. The situation looks grim but you shed the emotional pulls of the moment and you concentrate on the problem at hand. The conversation stands still, and then the doctor asks a question that is both shocking, yet extremely out of place, "So what do you guys think we should do about this?" You think to yourself, knowing the person beside you is just as befuddled as yourself, "Is the doctor asking me to make a decision on what course of medical action we should take?" The doctor then states that he doesn't want to be the one to make the decision on what should take place for the patient, even though he has years of education, experience, and a calling to be a doctor on his side. Your mind jumps to your next question, "Then why be a doctor at all? You aren't helping your patients with this kind of medical advice and service!" He then gives you several things that you could do to maybe fix the medical emergency that is taken place in your loved one's life right now, but he won't make the decision for you. He wants unity in the decision above all and wants you to know that he has the best intentions for your loved one and their state of well-being. He then gives you a gentle pat on the shoulder, showing some comfort for your situation, and walks into the next patientsroom. You sit, knowing that you can not make this decision because of your lack of education and expertise in this area, but also realizing that this dilemma has been dropped in your lap just a few minutes ago. The life of your loved one lays in the balance. What will you do to save them? And for that matter, what can you do to save them? "IS there anything you can do to save them," you ask yourself as you wipe tears from your eyes knowing that death is on the horizon if nothing is done to take care of the disease plaguing the body of your loved one.

A horribly terrifying feeling of impending doom. Death on the horizon with little being done to oppose its ominous results. My dear patriots in the cause for Christ, so rest the decision we must make about the fading life of the church here in America. Spiritual leaders (Doctors), such as pastors, denomination leaders, and public religious speakers have failed to be decisive in a cause of action in cutting out the cancerous masses (non-Biblical and worldly focuses) that are choking the life out of the American church as a body. When did we as a church decide air conditioning comes before the widows, orphans, the different, and the broken? When did we decide that personal wealth as a church should be given to meet the social needs of our congregation instead of the physical, emotional, and ultimately, spiritual needs of the communities in which we build our cathedrals? Rainy day funds? Faith giving for the future? Pastor Retirement? Just more words for creature comfort! We have grafted our self as the church to the very cancer that society itself is dying from. We are internally corrupt and all of us are to blame. What God intended for good, we have used to build gymnasiums, programs, and cultural approval as we compromise on issues of our faith to show our political correctness and our tolerance for differences. Somebody please pray with me that the church allows God to grab the scalpel, we need to be cut by the Great Physician, ending this inevitable decay in the very fabric of our church.

Simply put:
the diagnosis: apathy, sloth, irrelevance, and lack of faith due to a mistrust in personal human stability and achievement.
the prognosis: crippling pain to the church's effectiveness in America and the lives of countless lost souls, with death of the church in America as Christ established it in Scripture.
the needed procedure: a renewed effort to live the foundation of our faith, using the inerrant and infallible Word of God, the Bible, as our mandate and focus for our church, locally and universally speaking.
the doctors demanded: us, we, you, me, all of us who claim to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and follow Him daily, growing in relationship with Him until He returns.
the medicine: uncompromising faith, personally and corporately, as well as a striving to fulfill our call as the followers of Christ, and not doing anything that goes beyond, away, or apart from the vision that God lays on the hearts of His people.

We must rely on the Great Physician, Jesus Christ. He refers to Himself twice in the New Testament as such, using the Greek word, iatros, which is derived from a word meaning spiritual and physical healing. We need both within the body of Christ. The way we have come accustomed to "doing church" needs to be re-established upon the foundation of Scripture alone, being relevant, simple, and life-transforming. We need spiritual healing as well in most areas of our Christian faith, due to our lacking of vision, focus, and Scriptural foundation.

Please begin to allow God to break you and give you a vision personally to do His will in your life each and every day, directing your paths in the steps that He wants you to take, as well as holding those in care of our churches, and the Church as a whole, accountable for its condition through Christ-like love, discernment, and unflinching perseverance, with Scripture as our foundation. God save us all. May He help you, my friend, as well as the Church, weather these days ahead of us.