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When the seasons challenge us, beyond expectation. written by Michael McBane

There is upon us now a season that will begin to cost an increasing number of Christians because of who they are and what they represent as a Christ follower. Persecution in the west will become in many instances acceptable and even laws will uphold much of the coming discrimination. This is not a fairy tale my friends it is in places all ready occurring.

It may cost them employment, it may cost them relationships, it may bring accusations unfounded it may bring the unimaginable. As this unfolds where will our Christian communities be? Will we gather and support as the church of Acts did? They sold all they had so no one would be without. They gave up the comfort of their life styles to over come and provide. They saw the integration of God within a culture that was Godless. They sought to be a collective expression of love but they first waited to be empowered by the Holy Spirit as they had not known. They only had a promise that they knew God would fulfill. He had given them a hope that exceeded the cultural circumstance of that day. We should expect the same. Will we set our hearts to see Him, to adore Him?

All this said, there are portions of the greater Christian community that have not represented the image of Christ. They have not walked in a wisdom gathered from waiting on the Lord. They have not prayed with God but at Him. They have brought unneeded persecution and division. They have aided the enemy. The voice they have spoken with has been one of bitter intolerance fueled by fear and religion. Love has been absent if unheard of and would not be considered a possibility as they have voiced opposition to the deeds of this world. They have forgotten who they are in Christ. 

I have know the intolerance that this season is magnifying to a degree. I have lost employment because of my Christianity, and I said not a word. I have lost relationships because I would not compromise. I have experienced attacks and been told to leave particular homes that had been promised as men had changed their minds from one day to the next. We have labored in hope and promise and seen it trampled leaving us with a sense of abandonment, that would not last as joy would come again. But God never left us without. We have had more then enough. Comfort has at times been less then desired but we had more then enough. But we also heard the Lord speak about preparing, so we no longer carried debt. If we did not have the provision we did not charge in faith. We waited. We gave out of little and we have not been without. We have know the season of waiting with little evidence at times that confirmed who we were. We simply knew God had not directed otherwise. Hear this, that though was then, if we do not abide in Him today, if we do not walk in His grace to be obedient we have depleted what was. It is in this hour that we must carry the seeds of what we sensed was preparation. We must dust off our weariness. Let us be renewed in His presence like the morning rain.

Regardless of what is coming we must ask that our leaders are confronted with an encounter with Christ. That God would show mercy. That they would act in accordance with the desire of God. We must also ask that Christians do not conform to the wisdom of this world. We do this so that we may live in a measure of peace. The example of Abraham asking God for mercy is before us and it reveals to us that we have the same purpose. It is the heart of God.

The people who gathered in the church of Acts were those who heard a call. They gathered with one purpose and by the grace of God remained intent. They upon hearing came prepared. They gathered with great flexibility. They knew that laws would not turn the hearts of men to see the King of Kings. They as Godly men could though. It was who they were as they obeyed at times in extreme ways. The Disciples had seen 5000 feed with a hand full of bread and fish. They knew deliverance was not something that Jesus feared it was an over flow of being in His presence. They saw healing extend from Christ’s virtue. They waited for such overflow in their gathering and life. They would then go out to the ends of the earth. Not to retain who they had been but to prepare the way of the Lord.

The intolerance of what Christianity represents to the fringe elements of society will increasingly become the intolerance of a growing populace that has allowed their needs at all costs to be fulfilled and funded by a government that never had the interests of the people at hand. They will be sympathetic to anything or anyone that promises them something today at the cost of tomorrow. They will be blind to the obvious. For example to tax the wealthy will not cost the wealthy for they will make the adjustments to the cost of doing business. The middle class and the poor will find they have little to gain for they will not have the meager buying power they had before such an increase was imposed.

The ability to erode the population from any semblance anchored in moral conviction is  growing like wild fire. The vacuums of multiple decades of indiscretion and flagrant justification of sin is being filled with the spirits of a dark purpose. Gross darkness is thickening.

The earth has been groaning and it will suffer with the rejection of God less and less as it turns from deep within bringing unthinkable disasters that will challenge the hearts of men and women and crush economies. This is not an angry God dispelling judgement but the accumulated sorrows of creation yearning for the completion, the maturity of the sons of God. And it is also the work of a sinister enemy to bring death to man. We must discern each day with hearing the will of God. We should not be without such understanding.

We cannot accept any longer that we are a Christian nation. Even the greater world sees that we as a nation have discarded the foundation of our greater value and strength. There is a lingering mindset based on traditions that seeks to retain this hope but it is not so. Even though since the seventies many voices have sought to prepare us for the hour that is upon us, we are ill prepared. Our preparation cannot be in a mindset based on disgruntled philosophical persuasions. It can not foster a bitter hatred of those who we see as our enemies. We do not war against flesh and as Christ followers we must be rooted in a grace that expands daily. A grace that allows us to live above the sorrows and complications of life. We can prepare practically and in many cases we should. But that type of preparation for its own sake will not be based on the purpose and spirit of love. Notice I did not say principals of love, principal is valid but the love of God is based within this equation, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul and your neighbor as yourself. We can not love without the first part of this command igniting the second part. For us to merely love out of principal is human effort. 

Some have turned away from any thought of preparation believing that a rapture would take them out of an earth that began to implode. This doctrine grew out of the comfort of western theology. It ignored the countless martyrs of history and of our day. The ones who have died because they believe in Christ even in this day in many countries. This has been foreign to our culture and scanned across our thoughts like info commercials. Many have thought they could donate this away not accepting it or comprehending its greater purpose.

We are here to do the deeds of Jesus among us and to extend this love and life to this world. In season and out we are to be prepared. We are to be ready, to have our lamps trimmed and to have the daily fresh oil to light the present way. We have been far to flippant. And depending on where people live and how comfortable their life style is they may have little to no acceptance of what I am saying. It is not affecting them directly at this moment.

These are some of the things that have eroded our foundation.

‎"Planned Parenthood's New Annual Report presented in January 2013: We Did 333,964 Abortions" celebrated at a press conference. 

Marriage is no longer seen as a union between a man and women. Sexuality is blurred and the vulgarity of unnatural sexual consumption is unthinkable. To remain pure  sexually is unthinkable even in Christian circles. Churches now attract the young adults with wine and cigar parties. What about the reality of Christ? What the eyes partakes of has diluted sensibilities and eroded the hearts of men and women. Wisdom then is no longer held in the binding of history and life’s laid down but in the mode of the current trend. 

We have a culture that is unattached, that cannot communicate without the use of a hand held phone. Therein is a culture void of emotion when confronted with engagement of heart to heart life. This is seen as progress but it is imploding and digressing humanity. A day is not to far when communication of this sort ends, is blacked out. We will have a cultural break down as anxiety explodes across the masses.

As a nation we have allowed a liberal agenda to disguise itself and shackle the lower poverty groups into prisoners of dependance.

The greater church has so identified with using the world to attain its means that they have failed to see that the inclusion of tax breaks , the 501 codes will soon place demands on them, demands that may be retro active. Ministry must be redefined. The church will be forced to function as it was intended. Bone to bone, each part taking its place. Each joint suppling another. I suggest a grand and quick reevaluation of who and what we are. This examination will alter the face of what we have known and expected from church. But this adjustment will uncover both life and death. Christ in us will emerge.

As some have been called to be centers of refuge they must then be unencumbered, free and flexible. These are churches, geographic regions and families.

The church has not seen the value in caring for this earth and left it to the agendas of groups that lack freedom and clarity. We because of greed are returning vast lands back to the possibilities of the pre World War Two dust bowl era. A time when the earth reacted to unprincipled farming and greed. This disaster thought corrected was merely replaced as a water table that went from the top of our nation to the bottom is all most depleted because farmers grow corn for pigs and use this water to irrigate. The world is hungry and our government has forced farmers into regulations that do not allow them to grow food for a starving world. We have even sought to legislate seeds and who can produce them. 

It is not necessary to continue with examples we know most they confront us, our sin is upon us. We will soon perhaps have no choice but to live in Christ supernaturally. 

I write these words to say it is time to prepare. But we must do so by returning to the Lord. For no matter what comes if we are not in Christ today we will crumble. Paul, Peter and the Christians who have stood against all odds did so in the grace of God. It is a reality so big. And it is the place of abiding. We are being challenged to step into the purpose of God and to allow HIm to take away our preconceived ideas about what will be. We are being given an opportunity to see Him as never before. Our adoration, devotion to simply Him will change us.  For His names sake. Let us arise.