“because I am crying too, this church has a reputation of being alive and is dead now, my bride is taking her last breaths and I am sad very sad, are you also going to abandon her, I know you are looking for a church with a Youth Group, good musical band but what you see here is a dying church and you might don’t want to come back here, right? Rose this is my beloved bride, taking her very last breaths, I am crying, I say it again I am crying, I the LORD who created the heaven and earth is crying” and I heard my Lord’s sobbing.
I had nothing to say. I felt guilty. I remembered all those days when I walked in churches like this one dying, breathing their last breaths and thought there is nothing for my family in this church and I never went back. That day my Lord opened my eyes and I realized somehow directly or indirectly I am also responsible in her death.
In fact we all are responsible for the death of Christ’s bride. We do not admit it but it is true. We all want things from her to satisfy our desires; good music, humour-filled sermon, good Sunday school, comfortable seats, air conditioner, heater, paved parking lots, wi fi connections, modern and better technologies and stuff. If she fails to fulfill our demands we look for another one and abandon her.
Some of us want to control her so much that we completely mold her into our ideologies and when time demands a change we strictly hold on to her in the prison of past glories. We persistently and stubbornly ignore the promptings of the Holy Spirit. We want to control her and for that we treat her as a horse with a bridle in her mouth so we can move her in whatever direction we want her to be. And when things do not work the way we want, we decide to find a new victim and repeat the same process all over again. We are unintentionally slowly and gradually amputating the body of Christ’s bride so much so that it is almost at the brink of extinction in North America, losing one or sometimes several parts of her body.
When I realized what I have done, I cried to the Lord, “Lord Can you please forgive me for I have forgotten the ‘first love’, please forgive me”. I was lamenting in my spirit loudly and begging for forgiveness. The Lord heard my lament and answered me,
My child I have already forgiven you. Look at my Cross where I shed my blood for you and for every part of my bride’s body. Oh how I wish to see the unity within all the parts of my bride’s body. Oh how I wish to see my bride flourishing and wiping away tears from my children’s eyes. Oh how I wish to see her acknowledging ‘her first and only true love’, oh how I wish to see her alive again, oh my daughter you don’t know how much I love her. I love her so much so that I am willing to go on the Cross every day until I unite with her”.
I asked the Lord, “Lord if you love her so much then why don’t you save her from this death, why don’t you do something for her, for us? The Lord replied to me with agony in his voice,
“My child, the Cross where I shed by blood displays what I have done for her and for you. I already won the victory over death. I gave her freedom, I gave her my WORD, and I gave her the Comforter. I sent a Guide for her from Heaven. I gave her everything she needs for her survival but she refused to accept anything I offered her. She finds comfort in earthly things- expensive and high tech equipment for worship. Her focus is on how to do church rather than how to be a church. She became self-centered and decided to go on her way, she decided to divorce me, she shut her door on me but my child I still come every day knocking at her door waiting for an answer and I have made a promise that I will never break whoever will open the door for me I will come inside and eat with him or her.”
I said to the Lord with tears in my eyes and with heavy-laden heart, “Please tell me Lord what can I do? The Lord whispered to me gently, “Just do what you did today my child; listen to my cry and follow me for I am the way, the truth and the life.”
By Rose Amer
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