If you read about Jesus' life, you see time and time again where He hammered the most religious people of His day. In Luke 14, Jesus heals a man of a certain disease on the Sabbath. According to their rules, healing on the Sabbath was work, and work was against the rules, and so healing was against the rules. Jesus made the statement that if they had a son or ox fall into a well they were not going to leave him in there would they? Of course you would immediately pull them out. How dumb would it be to not have healed this man of his disease just because it was on the Sabbath. The leaders had become so rule bound, they could not do what was right! Their rules and religion had replaced a relationship with God.
I'm reading a book called The Present Future. In the book the author says, "the North American church is not spiritual enough to reach our culture." He goes on to talk about having a missional spirituality, which requires that God's people be captured by His heart for people, that our hearts be broken for what breaks His, that we rejoice in what brings Him joy.
How many of us "church folk", of which I am one, know truly what those things are?
Erwin Mcmanus tells of a breakthrough moment in His ministry where for a period of time he began to pray for God to allow him to see people the way God sees them. He goes on to say that as he prayed this prayer, he began to weep for people he would see on the street and in other places. God was giving him a picture of how He feels about the hurting and the disconnected. Will we ask God to turn our hearts in such a way that we will share His thoughts, feelings and desires?
Brad