"Weebles........................."

Sitting in Sunday morning service and listening to the worship group up front lead the congregation in several rounds of “I will enter His courts with thanksgiving in my heart; I will enter His house with praise”, it occurred to me that perhaps it might indeed help if I made such an effort. Over thirty-nine years in Pentecost and, while my anchor-line with Christ is yet solid and secure, while belief in basic denominational doctrine has not changed, it yet remains that the road has brought me to a place where so much of what takes place within the sanctuary seems more and more programmed, manipulative in its attempt to connect with the Holy Ghost. It has nothing to do with the congregation’s faith and everything to do with mine…. In a book I’m reading by John W. Whitehead, entitled “Truth Under Fire”, he quotes Martin Luther as once saying “If this daily routine is our only declaration, we aren’t declaring Christ at all. We are only telling what we already know to each other.” I’m hesitant to pin that statement on my bunch, believing that, in many ways, this is a group which greatly reaches out to the community around us. What concerns me is the message that we do take forth, both the content of what we speak and the manner in which we deliver it as well. I find the Gospel to be a resurrected Reality within who is well able to provide His own witness, His own confirmation of the facts. I find today’s believers, for the most part, either void of that Biblical promise or misguided in their understanding of the matter… Not that this old man has conquered the subject. Following Him always has always amounted to a staggering down life’s path on our part, a pursuing of Him through that veil which is ever before us; and here go I. Even as the evangelist weeps for the lost, however, so also cries my heart for His body to awaken unto more than the Book, more than a “self-affirmed salvation” in which we lose sight of center……