Jeremiah 3:15
And I will give you shepherds according to My heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. NKJV.
The Manufacture of Spiritually Retarded, Crippled Clowns
The servants of Christ wash the feet of travelling men, journeying across this dirty world ever closer to both the heart and the city of Jesus.The servants of Christ, might retool these same journeymen, re-arm them, re-orient them, re-educate them maybe, reinforce them in the faith most certainly but shall surely return them to their journey, until the next and necessary pit stop, when they shall have the privilege to deal with a bigger, leaner, ever onward, ever upward ‘looker,’ than they previously had to service. For their journey, through both challenge and change, has brought to them increased personal strength and increased personal maturity and they have moved on, manned up, grown in both grace and truth! Grown in their appetite as journeyman, grown in that, their sight of the heavenly city is clearer, the smell of the green, green grass of their eternal home is that much more acute; their ears are more full of the sound of singing angels; their skin is more sensitive to the feeling and the flowing of the wind of the Spirit; their arms stronger and lifted up; their feet full of peace, more certain, more sure and more directed in the way; their armour dented but bright; their sword bloodied yet sharper; the loins of their mind now being more lifted and focused; the belt of truth, tight and secure around the chiselled core of their being! Yes indeed, the servants of Christ, that is the pastors and leaders of the church of the living God, shall happily and with great thankfulness, wash the feet of such travelling men, such lookers unto Jesus.
Now, this picture of growing and journeying strength, of maturing in grace and truth, I believe is a Biblical expectancy. However and unfortunately, this picture is in fact, to our Laodicean lot anyways, an unwanted and unsought for fantasy and ashamedly, for I speak as a shepherd, as a foot washer for the journeying man, the shepherds are mostly to blame for this most sorry state of affairs. In my journeying around the Christendom and in my ministry to the same, I am tired of seeing many gigantic, staff led churches, doing everything for their congregations to justify their often too well paid existence, by enabling thousands of kindergarten kiddies to simply continue to languish on the breast and in the so doing they have created vast churches of sucklers and suckers, baby Christian clowns. It’s just pitiful.
All teachers must ensure that at some point, and the sooner the better by the way, that their pupils overtake them. Yes, all teachers must pull back the bow for eventual release. However, when teachers have students who never move on, and in North America especially, these stunted students attend churches in their tens of thousands, then two strange things will happen to the church. Watch this now, for first, the teachers themselves will turn into smiling imbeciles, toting suitcases full of well worn platitudes and the odd blunt instrument, and secondly, their students will turn into spiritual cripples, retarded Christians, who of necessity, have to have their backside wiped for them
and be personally spoon fed with poorly, pre-chewed rubbish.Such sad shepherding is not releasing strong disciples into their journey, but rather, is producing imbecilic imitations of Christ, who ride around the children’s race track, pulling into the same old pit stop for the same old problems, which will be dealt with by same old people in the same old inept, low octane, low expectation way. There is you see, no expectation or plan no daring demand, no challenging necessity for people to grow in grace and truth.
I do not envy the shepherd, who has sold himself into such dismal drudgery and I pity the sheep that still suck on these strange, fat staff titties that such churches alluringly dangle before them, for neither the smiling and imbecilic teachers nor such crippled disciples, will stand in the fires which are to surely come upon us.
It is out of such great concern that I speak so harshly tonight. Cool or not so cool, senior or otherwise, I pity the pastor that has to stand before Jesus and account for every empty, energy absent, wimp of a word which he has spoken. It will not bode well for such makers of retards.
Yes, if you are not changing and growing, then you are spiritually retarded. If you are not being re-armed, re-orientated, renewed, refreshed, re-educated and re-enforced in your faith to then be released into and served on, your destined journey, then you are being short changed, slowly killed, and are going nowhere. Indeed, you are purposefully being kept in your wheelchair and paying through the nose for that privilege. You are a spiritual retard and you have been fed and bred for it from what other imbeciles have termed 'the finest pulpits in the land.'
I must confess, that at the moment, I can find no hope in my heart for such lost shepherds, locked into such a good looking and grossly debilitating system. However, I do believe there is some hope for those lost sheep who are sick of mommies milk and wanting at last, to take care of their own rear end. Yes there is hope for those sheep if they want it. The beginning of the answer is simple. Find some hard looking men and some greener pastures. Find some scarred and sun burnt shepherds moulded by the heart of Hosea and the sporting the look of Amos the iron man about them, and if they and the greener grass are over the hill and far away, then move there! Time is running out. For the sake of your poor retarded spirit, find a good restaurant that serves whole food, that makes you eat your greens, that measures your B.M.I. and coaches and cajoles you into becoming a muscular man, a man of the Word and the Spirit, a man that can survive in the field, form families and feed himself and them, teaching them to do the same. Find such a church and go to it.
The servants of Christ wash the feet of travelling men, journeying across this dirty world ever closer to both the heart and the city of Jesus.
Listen: - Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation — as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 3:14-18a
Pray:- In my life Lord, be glorified today. In Your church Lord, be glorified today. In this world Lord, be glorified today. Ruin this retarded Laodicean church Lord, by raising up men like You, full of grace and truth, full of the Word and the Holy Spirit, wholesome, healthy, hard and happy. Then Lord, make me one of them, in Your great name I pray. Amen.
From April 24th 2011 Broadcasting on London's
Premier Christian Radio
Each Sunday Night at 5:45pm.
www.66weeks.com
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