It's time to rise up....

Tonight marked the second week of House Church/Bible Study at the Bates' house.  It was another good night with great people.  It is so refreshing to be in the midst of a group of people who are real.  There is nothing fake about this group of people.  Just a group of people meeting together to pray, share burdens and praises, learn from each other and to grow closer to the Lord.  Too often, people meet together in the name of the Lord to be seen or to be heard.  This is, in my humble opinion, an abomination.  People who meet together for personal gain, puff out their chests, and act as if they are superior to others are in no way the Christians they call themselves.  Really, think about it.  Most of us have been to churches where these people are.  It must simply be stench in the very nostrils of the Lord.  You know the type, those who feel that they have some special clout because they have been at a particular church longer than anyone else, give more money than any one else, or are constantly boasting of all they know about the Word of God.  Instead of boasting and feeling as if one is anything superior, which totally disqualifies one, because the Word plainly states that the first will be last and the last will be first, one should seek to humbly serve without recognition or accolades. This is the very thing that Jesus taught AND practiced.  While He was worthy of servants, He came and served.  So much so that he washed His disciple's feet. Don't you think it is time the 'church' got the priorities straight and began to be 'Christians' instead of claiming to be?  We encounter people everyday who say that they are not going to church because of all of the hypocrites.  You know what?  Sadly, the 'world' has a better grip on the truth than much of the 'church'.  So how will this ever change? It will only change when people rise up and say, 'Enough is enough.'  As long as people continue to enable the hypocrites in churches, they will continue to trash the very name of Jesus with their hypocritical actions and arrogant behavior.  It is time to be real and stand on the Word of the Lord, not on the principles of what people say church is supposed to be.  Too often 'church' is about what man says is right and very little about what God's Word says.  I challenge you to stand on the Word and stop blindly following hypocritical leadership.