Thursday, October 15, 2009

Which well do you draw water from?

This post is meant as a follow up to this one.

I've come to an age where statistically, 80% of my peers will lose their excitement in attending church services & serving God, resulting in a few eventually walking out of the church & even the faith. Those that remain will spend a lot of their time in church with 2 things - talking about those who left; and wondering why they stayed.

Did the church change? Or did we?

I believe one of the key contributing factors of this sad situation is misplaced expectations. Perhaps for far too long we have placed our expectations of Jesus upon the church. How did that happen? How did we replace Jesus, our covenant keeping God, with the earthly, imperfect church? Unconsciously & unintentionally, we, with 2nd-hand faiths, allowed ourselves to rely & depend upon the church to feed our spirituality. And due to that dependency, our personal relationship with Jesus Christ became an exact duplication of the spiritual atmosphere of the church.

The corporation worship affects our personal worship lives;

Prayer meeting affects our prayer lives;

Church events generates our spiritual highs & lows;

The pastors' sermons become our only source of food & water;

Church members' responses & actions determine how joyful it was to serve God that Sunday;

Church cliques are our great basis for sense of belonging & self-esteem, self worth;


I've been there - for a very long time, I might add. Nowadays I still have such struggles. Should it be that way? Hell no!!

You want to experience Jesus? Get your sources right. Which well do you draw water from? Don't you know He has given you a fountain?

"Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again,
but whoever drinks of the water I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."
- John 4:13 - 14.