Sunday School Lesson

How To Lose It
If you want to lose God's touch upon your life and ministry, here's a good way to do it.
An article by Jeff Rouff
Posted by Joey Kelly

In Jeremiah 2:13 it says that one of the two evils which God's people had committed was that they had forsaken God. Today's professing church has committed the very same evil: they have forsaken God and forgotten Him. They have turned their backs on God to go and conduct their lives in ways pleasing to themselves. All that remains in their lives is an appearance of religion. They go through motions that suggest they are a righteous people without the presence and power of God.

The Pentecostal church is currently made up of many people in the category mentioned above. The once growing movement that was so marked by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in their church services and individual lives is now but a shadow of its former self. Absent is the expectation of God's moving and touching people's lives in a miraculous manner. What now is left is a people going through motions more interested in feeding their stomachs than feeding their souls. Gone are the days of waiting on God and travailing in the Spirit, as they quickly leave the sanctuaries to wait in line at their favorite restaurants.

A missing element in the professing church, which indicates they have indeed forsaken God, is a total lack of respect for God and the things of the Lord. There is little, if any, respect given to the bible, the pastor, the church service, the work of God, etc. The professing church has taken on the attitude so commonly seen in our society today, namely, a total lack of respect for anything. This lack of respect is demonstrated clearly through lives showing neither devotion to God, nor fear of God. As a result we are seeing lives devoid of the Holy Spirit's moving, as He did in the book of Acts, or even as He did back in the days of Azusa Street. When a person's heart is empty of respect for God, and they are more devoted to the world than to God, fearing man but not God, then why would the Lord bother to move miraculously on their behalf? A soul in this condition would not even appreciate it or treat it as holy---assuming they could even recognize it at all.

We are seeing very little of what the Holy Spirit is capable of doing in church services or within people's lives anymore. This can be directly traced to the lack of respect for God. This lack of respect defines the professing church today. So this begs the question of how we can get this respect for God back into our lives. This is a very difficult question to answer. First, one has to be aware that there exists a problem in one's own heart. Second, there must be a desire for God to bring about change. Third, one must have a desire to be serious about God. In short, the professing church needs to repent for its lack and/or absence of respect for God. Without this, there remains little hope of seeing the mighty acts of God taking place anymore.

God is serious about being God. Perhaps to regain this missing respect and a seriousness about God, we need to go back to the bible and read it for all it's worth, in its entirety. We need to consider this carefully.

I grew up in a Jewish family. When I was a young boy we would gather together with all the family yearly to celebrate Passover. We would gather at the home of my grandparents, and it was a very serious and solemn occasion. We read entirely through a book called the Haggadah, which tells the story of what God did on behalf of the children of Israel in the land of Egypt, and how He brought them out miraculously. We read about His love, His promises, His miracles, His power and His great deliverance. Every year, we would gather and be reminded of all that God had done on behalf of our people. It was a solemn time. It was a serious time. It was a time for celebration. It reminded us to be humble and grateful to an almighty God.

Then as the years went by, and we no longer met at my grandparents home, things changed. As we met at the homes of other relatives, the sense of seriousness and solemnity changed. Now it was only about celebration, eating and having fun. What brought about this radical and disastrous change? I believe it was because we no longer gave much attention to the readings that reminded us about all the things God had done. Before long we no longer read through the book at all. God was forsaken. Solemnity and seriousness were gone: all that remained was a party. We definitely had lost something: we lost the heart and purpose for which we gathered. We exchanged God for a party.

This party atmosphere and attitude can be greatly seen in the lives of the professing believer within the Pentecostal church. Proper attention must be given to the bible, God's holy word, or all will be lost. If we neglect the bible, we will eventually lose respect for God, seriousness about God, the ability to honor God, the power of God, and lose respect for living within the boundaries of God's holiness, etc. In short, we will lose all that God meant for us to have. All that will remain is a people who just want to feel good by whatever suits their fancy. There will be no respect for God. There will be no respect for what God has done. There will be no respect for what God wants to do in our lives.

When we forsake the bible in any way then we forsake God. We must return to the bible in all its entirety and fullness and truth. It's the only hope we have of regaining our respect for God and experiencing once more the blessings that He wants to bring into our lives.