THE CHURCH IS TOO CROWDED

The church is too crowded. It is filled with us. Our ways and our systems. We have found the formula and are reproducing it from coast to coast. We have created the better way, a newer process and it is working. It must be, because our churches are filling up. Man has found success. He has sought for the plan and has found it. No more hunger. No more need for crying out. We have found the Christianity that fits our lifestyle. Everyone is happy with it and everyone is comfortable with it. No requirement for timely intimacy in this church we have created. Birth and life require intimacy, but cloning only requires a refined process. We can’t feed ourselves, but then we don’t have to. We are being spoon fed. Quickly and neatly. What a well packaged product!

The church is too crowded. God is trying to find a place. A place where people are desperate, needy and crying out. A place where they live their lives in such a way that the miraculous is the only way out. A place where they’ve gotten out of the boat and may fail, but refuse to sit with the crowd and watch Jesus pass by. They know that the only safe place is near Him. They have called out, “If it is you, call me to come to You”, because they’d rather be with Him in the middle of the storm than without Him in the boat made by men. But we are not needy. Our lives echo the lines we have been given in this performance, “I am rich and have need of nothing”. The great and patient God lovingly waits for the parade of pride to pass by. He will watch until we tire of titles, self-promotion and self importance. The circus attracts everyone, but God. We have everything we need, but Him. Maybe now more than ever He is asking of us to, “Be STILL and know that I am God.”

The church is too crowded. Every corner and hallway is cluttered with busyness and efficiency. See how we run? Each moment is productive and every service scheduled. Filled with stuff and packed with more stuff. We are bursting at the seams with things to do, but, as Martha learned, busyness is not godliness. The fine tuned machine runs on and on, but has no life. We don’t have room for Him, because we have plenty of us. He is desperately trying to find a place to show up and be God. It’s amazing what we have accomplished, without Him. Our lives are filled with information about Him, but we don’t remember experiencing Him, living Him first hand. If we clear out our lives, then He will fill them. He will saturate them and overflow them. Rivers of living water will flow from us.

The church is too crowded. It must die so it can live. It must let go so it can receive. It must lose it’s life so it can find it. Maybe it is too simple for us. We have added to it, decorated it, painted it, spun it, dressed it up, sweetened it and put it on a billboard and sold it. We must make the great exchange. Our life for His. Our image must go so He can come. We must not let the thin slice of our understanding and experience allow us to miss the eternal greatness of Him. Follow Him, staying close enough to hear His softest whisper. Clinging to Him and breathing in the aroma of Christ. We must be alone with Him. Let us, as His children, ask Him to take us to places no other person can describe to us. May we follow until we are lost in Him. Pursue Him until everything else becomes loss compared to the wonder of knowing Him. May our heart beat to attract Him.

Then the church will be crowded. Crowded with all the greatness and love of God. Pressed on every side by His mercy. Surrounded by His righteousness, grace and joy. Elbow to elbow with kindness and meekness. Face to face and heart to heart with men, women and children who have left all to find everything. People who have let the dead bury the dead so they may go and find the Resurrection and the Life. Then the church will be bursting at the seams to share Him outside the walls of a building. We will walk the hallways of everyday life with humble boldness with no fear, for we have already passed from death unto life. Our faith will be what we have lived out as truth and the miraculous will find us. We will not have to seek it.

Yes, the church will be crowded, teeming with His life, but then there will be room for everyone. There will be a place for the saint to live and the sinner to come to. We will look at others, but cast no stones. We will boast in our weaknesses for then His power is made perfect. And as far as the eye can see, the repentant will be forgiven, the brokenhearted healed, the rejected received and the crippled made whole. It will be on earth as it is in heaven. Scoot over, closer to Him. Let’s make room.