New Hope For Women

An Historic Moment for the Church

In this historic moment in America's history, we heard the slogan, "Change we can believe in". One thing is clear, change is needed, but unless that change comes to the American Church, no change will be worth believing in. The Church seems to be in its own historical moment- "The Lazarus Moment". This reminds me of a story in the Old Testament, Judges 16; the sobering account of the life of Samson. As a Nazirite, Samson was to be set apart for the Lord and live according to God's highest standards so that God could use him in the deliverance of the Jewish people. God endowed him with great strength, but because of selfishness and his insatiable lust, he was stripped of power, and defeated by his enemy. The sad reality of this story is that he was seduced, lulled to sleep and when he rose to do battle, he did not even perceive that his strength had left him. His compromise of God's standards, desires for worldly things and lust of the flesh opened the door for satan's power, delusion and ultimately his demise. Samson was Israel's judge for 20 years and during that time he never succeeded in delivering the people from oppression. At best he had a few memorable moments where he displayed God's awesome power, but he was not consistent in his relationship with the Lord and therefore these victories never led to lasting peace, triumph, or even influence over the pagan nation of the Philistines. How tragic that this story of old has a familiar theme that resonates in the present condition of the American Church. The Body of Christ like Samson has become addicted to all the world has to offer and like the addict on the street, we have prostituted ourselves to support our various sins. We fool ourselves and try to convince others that we are a force to be reckoned with by quoting scriptures such as; "we can do all things through Christ Who strengthens us", not realizing His strength has been lifted off of us because the very nature of our sinful condition separates us from God. Until our eyes are open to the truth of our condition, we remain spiritually blinded and unable to take the necessary step toward reconciliation and restoration which is repentance. Sadly we, like the addict are in a state of denial. The American Church has occupied herself with satisfying her many desires, conforming to the ways of the world instead of pursuing her passion for Christ. We have forsaken our first love, and are not even aware that our strength has left us. The American Church has gone about "church as usual" not recognizing that our enemy has seduced us, deceived us, and lulled us to sleep. We arose to do battle with the enemy only to discover we lost our strength.

In Ephesians 6:12 we read, "we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." In order to understand the correlation between the present condition of the church and Samson in his final days, we need to understand the sport of wrestling at the time Paul wrote this scripture. In a wrestling match, the victor got to poke out the eyes of his opponent. In the story of Samson, you will recall when God's strength left him he was captured, and then his eyes were gouged out. Afterwards they shackled him and threw him in prison. Proverbs 29:18 says, "where there is no vision, the people perish."

During the recent presidential campaign, Senator McCain made a remarkable comment, he said; " The Republicans were sent to change Washington, but Washington changed the Republicans." God spoke to me immediately and said, "The problem is far greater than that, I sent My Church into the world to change it, but instead the world changed her."

At this critical time when history is being made, it is important for the Church to recognize that a change of heart can become the defining moment of the greatest harvest the world has ever seen. The time is right, and the stage has been set. We need to ask ourselves, where has the world influenced us, and where have we had no influence over the world?

I'm afraid our spiritual eyes have been poked out by our enemy and the enemy appears to have been victorious over God's people. But the story of Samson doesn't end there. Samson repents and asks God to be used one more time, and he defeats the Philistines and actually kills more of them in his final greatest moment than in all his other victories combined. The Church needs to wake up from her slumber to arise to greatness in this hour. In the story of Lazarus, before Jesus orders Lazarus to come forth, he tells his diciples to "remove the stone". The stone is a hinderance, which for us can only be removed through repentance. What in your life do you need to remove? In order for you to be a part of possibly the greatest moment in all of history, you need to prepare the way for the Lord to speak to us to "Come forth". We are a generation of history makers, lets lead the way to usher in the return of our Lord. Let us be the "change the world can believe in".