When I think about the sacrificial death of our savior on the cross it reminds me of just how much He deserves my praise. He paid a debt that He did not owe. Oh how awesome is our God. But today I was meditating on the cross and the goodness of God, and begin to see some awesome things. In fact, I believe the real message of the cross is one of love and hate.
We know the classic verse of (John 3:16) "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begooten son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." Love and hate was the reason Jesus became a man. God loves His creation. He desires none to perish, but all to come to repentance. (2Pet.3:9) God loves every human being walking the Earth. However, one major problem hinders His love for us, sin. His desire is for all humanity to go to heaven. But contrary to Hollywood's theology, everyone doesn't go to heaven. Sin seperates man from God. Big or small, gross or not so gross sin is a terrible thing. In fact, I think we preachers would do our churches a much needed favor if we preached more about it. I know it's not the popular thing to do. I even realize the potential of losing some of the people as a result. But what are we trying to accomplish? Is our goal to pack a building or populate the Kingdom. I must say that in today's society there is a vast difference between the church house and the Kingdom of God. Now I'm not a negative gloom and doom person. But I am becoming increasingly concerned about the strategies of the Church.
I am a radical preacher that loves high energy contemporary style services. I teach our leadership to think outside the box of tradition and allow the spirit of creativity to flow. But I want to see a crowd of God chasers verses a crowd of thrill seekers. Let me clarify what I mean by thrill seekers. I'm not referring to the thrill of knowing God and experiencing His presence. These are the people we need to produce. Today we have a whole host of people that occupy our auditoriums that are thrilled by the display and the hype of our presentation. This does produce excitement but doesn't produce conversions. Now I know with statements like this, I may never be a keynote speaker in a modern day conference, but my goal is not to be the popular preacher. I love all God's servants. I commend every man and woman of God that labor in His Word. But as I study this book I see preachers in the book of Acts that were looking conversions not crowds. There will be many church members in hell. This bothers me!! Even worse, there will be preachers in hell!!! There is a message people coming from the cross!!!! God loves us. He loves us so much He nailed His only Son to an old rugged cross. But there is also a message of hate coming from that same cross. The reason Jesus laid His life down for us is because GOD HATES SIN!! Sin kept us from God. God made us to be with Him. Not just in heaven. But right now, God wants to commune and fellowship with us. Sin forbids this union. But thank God that on calvary's mountain, sin was defeated. Death lost it's sting. Hell was stripped of it's authority. Jesus died and rose the third day and said I will build a church and give them the keys to my Kingdom and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
I say amen to every strategy that God grants. I support and admire every Pastor that reaches the masses for Christ. But because of the message that comes from the cross. Love for People and hate for sin, we must examine our methods to assure we are producing conversions and not just church members.
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