A Heart Felt Lesson
Monday I go to the hospital for a heart catheterization to explore if there are blockages in my heart. According to the prognosis of my cardiologist, a balloon angioplasty or stenting procedure may be in order. Worst-case scenario would be open heart by pass surgery. They claim that this blockage may have taken years to get to this point although it has appeared that I have lived a healthy life all along. They gave me a notebook to read to prepare me for all that is ahead. What I did not like was the latter part of the manual featuring “Lifestyle Changes” and “Healthy Eating” section. Not only will this be a procedure that will change the length of my life, but also demand a lifestyle change.
Mostly all these blog pages that I have been written have been about the church, where it is now, and where it might be headed in the future. The church’s condition is so much like my own: looking healthy, but after centuries of history have formed blockages, not allowing free flow of the blood of Christ and His Holy Spirit. I believe the church is beyond the stenting and angioplasty stage of improvement, needing a complete open heart surgery called REVIVAL, RENEWAL, and a new REFORMATION! What it also needs to realize is that with this revival, renewal, and reformation will come a “lifestyle change”, in other words, the way we “do church”. We may have to “bypass” the way we have always have done church that has caused this condition in order to restore free flow of the Holy Spirit again. If we go back to the old way of doing church, we will end up with the same results we are now facing. If we embrace a new lifestyle change or way of doing church, we will restore the healthy Christian lifestyle of community in the body of Christ.
I believe the church needs to face a “new lifestyle change” by embracing the power of the five fold as outlined in Ephesian 4, not as church offices or positions, but as personal believer’s in Jesus Christ passions, points of view, and voices that will help them mature individually into Christ-likeness while corporately bringing unity to the body of Christ.
If you are new to this blog, I invite you to go back and read the blogs about “retooling the church”, the current “metamorphosis of the church”, the “21st Century Church”, “the Priesthood of Believers”, “five fold overall”, “new mindsets”, “accountability”, and others in the category section of this home page. It will expose a new way to look at the church, will require a new lifestyle of community from the church, will demand “grace, mercy, & acceptance as peers” as some of its pillars. It will demand a drastic “lifestyle” change for the church with a new diet based on “relationships” rather than programs, procedures, rules and regulations, in other words “religion”. Spiritual life without relationships produce religion, the blockage of the heart of God.
A fragmented body needs not only a restructuring, but also a fresh blood supply. The Church as a whole needs open heart surgery. The heart affects all parts of the body giving it oxygen, nutrients, life. The blood of Christ has always been the central theme of the gospel. The church does not need a blood transfusion, for the blood is the blood of Christ, but it does need open heart surgery to clear or bypass the blockages that religion has collected inside the Church’s veins.
I have faith in my cardiologist on Monday that he will perform the procedures that are necessary for normal blood flow throughout my heart and body, and I trust Jesus, the great Healer, through the power of his Holy Spirit to perform the procedures that are necessary for normal blood flow through the heart of the Church to all parts of its entire body to bring revival. I also trust the Holy Spirit to bring, lead, and orchestrate the “lifestyle” needed to keep the body healthy for centuries to come or until He comes for His Bride. Who would have ever thought that His Bride would have had to have open heart surgery before her wedding day in order to be healthy, pure, and without spot or wrinkle?