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"If you lived on the world’s terms, the world would love you as one of its own. But since I picked you to live on God’s terms and no longer on the world’s terms, the world is going to hate you" (John 15:19, The Message).
The church of today lives on the world's terms; there is no disputing it. The world loves today's church as its own. Armed robbers now come to pastors for prayers to succeed in their operations. Prostitutes come to our churches to receive prayers so as to attract wealthy customers, and afterwards bring their filthy tithes to our pastors.
It is sad that in this generation, pastors are busy raising a people for the world and not for the Lord. Our churches are filled with earth-bound and world-motivated 'believers' in whose thoughts heaven rarely feature. Indeed, the church of today is no longer the church of the Lord Jesus. It is the church of the people by the people for the people!
It is as though the world gave us terms and conditions to exist on its streets, and we spend all our resources laboring to meet those conditions. For instance, the world told the church:
'If you want to prosper on my streets, you must preach sermons that will make sinners comfortable.
You must speak less of God and talk more of man.
Remember you are on the earth, so don't talk to people about heaven'.
The world adds:
'And if you really want the people of the world to join you, you must dress the way they dress, play their kind of music, invite their comedians to 'minister' at your conventions, and make sure you don't speak in other tongues but speak the world's very language. If you do all these, the world will love you. .
But what did Jesus say? 'I picked you to live on God’s terms and no longer on the world’s terms'. Therefore, we cannot afford to dance to the world's tune anymore. Rather, we must find out what it entails to live on God's terms and apply ourselves to those terms. We must also be content to live on God's terms in spite of the lures of the world
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