Our Lack of Spiritual Emotion

Following up on the proto-repentance stuff:

(And, I also got this insight from someone writing off the blog.)

There are many ways that the CGGC today is different from the Church of God in its, dynamic, thriving, growing movement days.

Among the most important is that we were once a people of spiritual passion. We are now a people who define moderation.

Today we are cautious, reserved, temperate and lukewarm to the extreme.

The people who served our body in the Church of God movement days, were passionate people. They were radicals, extremists. Remember Lance's recent eNews highlighting Richard Kern's address to the General Conference in the 1960s?

Now,...

Ask yourself what the people who have desks in CGGC General Conference or regional offices are passionate about.

What, is it that Lance, for instance, sees in the CGGC that obviously causes him to weep like Jesus wept?

What is it, do you suppose, that your Conference Executive Director sees in your region...which is declining, as we all know...that makes him want to fashion a whip with his own hands to drive people away, as Jesus did when He entered the temple to drive out the moneychangers?

These people, whom we call leaders, live daily with the reality of our numerical decline and spiritual decay.

What do they do that suggests intensity? Passion?

Emotionally, we are lumps.

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Yet, the Gospels and the Book of Acts vibrate with emotion, as do the letters of Paul.

The people of the Church of God movement certainly were men and women who valued doctrinal truth but they ran on emotion. They were driven by passion. Read Winebrenner's 14th and 15th points if you have any doubt!

Perhaps you don't think about our demise in these terms, but who can deny it?

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The most important teachings of the Word demand passion...strong emotion...from God's people.

Love the Lord with all your heart...

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Love one another...as I have loved you.

The joy of the Lord is your strength.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

"I hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans."

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So, what do you do when you don't feel...or, don't feel what you are supposed to feel?

The truth is that feelings happen.

Can you MAKE yourself feel? Can you manufacture passion for something or someone you're neutral about?

How do you manufacture love? Or, joy? Or, fear? Or, when appropriate, hate?

How do you create, within yourself, the emotion required to obey the command to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength?

How do you make yourself work out your own salvation with fear and trembling if you are not already awed by the reality of the incarnation of God in the man Jesus of Nazareth?

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I have some thoughts about these things but no definite answer.

(Perhaps, it the role of the prophet..or, me as a prophet of proto-repentance...to note this problem and that it is the role of the shepherd, one who's living in submission to the Lord and to apostles and prophets, to provide the answer.)

Here's what I do know: We need to be honest with ourselves about ourselves. We are emotional lumps, and we need to acknowledge that truth about ourselves.

Emotionally, we're not what we could...should...MUST...be.

Let's face up to that truth.

Let's confess it...to the Lord...and to one another.

The Lord of all authority and power and blessing isn't blessing us.

And, a basic reason for that has to do with a deadness in our moderate, temperate, passionless, lukewarm hearts.

We must feel.